Stuck in neutral

Friday, February 11, 2005
By KEITH IDEC
HERALD NEWS

"Million Dollar Baby" has been a commercial, critical and promotional success.

Hilary Swank won a Golden Globe award for her powerful portrayal of fictitious female fighter Maggie Fitzgerald, while others that worked on the film were nominated for four more Golden Globes. The Clint Eastwood-directed drama was still the fifth most-watched movie in theaters throughout the country last week, eight weeks after it debuted, and has grossed more than $34 million since Dec. 17. The film has also exposed millions of Americans who wouldn't otherwise know anything about women's boxing to what's right about the sport.

Yet for all the positives produced by the movie, "Million Dollar Baby" doesn't offer an accurate indication of the unstable status of a sport still struggling to establish legitimacy nearly 10 years after a bloody, entertaining slugfest between Deirdre Gogarty and Christy Martin made some top promoters embrace women boxers for the first time.

And although such stars as Martin, Laila Ali and Mia St. John have made mainstream progress for various reasons, women's boxing is in many ways less visible today than it became in the aftermath of the groundbreaking Gogarty-Martin match on March 15, 1996.

Ali and Martin made unprecedented purses of $250,000 apiece for their fight. Martin versus Ali also attracted a sellout crowd in excess of 10,000 to the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi. The main event, which Ali won by fourth-round technical knockout, drew about 100,000 pay-per-view purchases as well, more than several subsequent pay-per-view events featuring male boxers.

"I think that was almost like the climax for women's boxing," Martin said. "It was like, 'This is what we have to offer. This is our best and now it's over.' "

Little Falls' Kathy Duva, chief executive officer for Bloomfield-based Main Events, hasn't had a woman on one of the company's cards since Ali, arguably women's boxing's best pound-for-pound performer, fought on the Mike Tyson-Andrew Golota undercard more than four years ago. The Passaic Valley High School graduate isn't against adding female fighters to future Main Events cards. She'll only do so however, if she's certain competitive matches can be made and that the women will be paid appropriately.

"That is not really the way it's supposed to be. I kind of would like to get to the place where if it was the women's fight that was driving the card, then the women would be paid commensurately."

In "A Ring of Their Own" Arnie "Tokyo" Rosenthal hopes he has a solution for avoiding such obvious championship mismatches, and many more of the problems plaguing women's boxing.

Women with barely .500 records and only 10 bouts worth of experience won't fight for a star's title if "A Ring of Their Own" is successful. The all-women's boxing series Rosenthal started with partner Ken Weiss debuted before a standing-room-only crowd of about 1,000 on Jan. 29 at the Silverton Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Female fighters desperate for activity have "overwhelmed" Rosenthal since he and Weiss announced the launch of the only series of its kind several months ago, and they intend to stage nine more cards by the end of 2005.

Their next show is scheduled for March 26 and will be televised via tape delay from Harrah's in Laughlin, Nev.

They'll then head to Edmonton on May 21 because women's boxing is pretty popular across the Canadian border. Rosenthal is in negotiations with representatives from Mohegan Sun, home to the WNBA's Connecticut Sun, for a future show as well. Rosenthal and Weiss will test the initial impact of "A Ring of Their Own" with a pay-per-view show in November, one Rosenthal will consider successful if the six-fight, all-women's show can draw between 25,000 and 50,000 buys.

"Women's boxing can't be firmly established as long as you're just a novelty act on a men's show," said Rosenthal, a former manager of male boxers and a onetime cable television executive. "The WNBA doesn't play at halftime during NBA games. The LPGA does not play between holes of men's golf. Women's tennis doesn't play between sets of men's tennis. They all have their own organizations and have done a great job of marketing their products. In the case of women's tennis, they've eclipsed the men. So why would women's boxing be relegated to just this little thing?"

Rosenthal is preaching patience, paying purses proportionate to the small amount of television revenue these first few shows will generate and hoping he can at least offer outlets to consistently expose women's boxing.

"I applaud what Arnie and Ken are doing," Duva said. "Women's boxing can't grow if someone doesn't promote it. I've seen how far women's sports have come in my lifetime. I'm hoping women's boxing will move along in the same way. If it's meant to be, it'll experience similar growth. But it's going to take time. It's just not going to happen overnight."

Reach Keith Idec at (973) 569-7073 or .