11.27.04 – By Bernie McCoy: The announcement of a bout scheduled for early December has given the sport of Women’s boxing a chance to finish the year on a high note. On December 10 at the Foxwoods Resorts in Connecticut, Englishwoman Jane Couch will defend her IWBF Light Welterweight title in a return bout with Jaime Clampitt.
This bout comes at a time when the sport has lingered in a state of almost self-imposed malaise. “Self imposed” since the sport continues to experience a series of mismatches and manipulations by top-ranked fighters seemingly intent on studiously avoiding climbing into the ring with the other top fighters in their weight divisions. The result has been a surfeit of glorified sparring sessions being masqueraded as championship fights, boxers fighting twice within a week or ten days against overmatched opponents and fighters continually matched against the same opponent twice and sometimes three bouts in succession. The Couch/Clampitt bout, if history is any indication, has a good chance of providing a welcome respite to this trend.
On June 12, Jane Couch and Jaime Clampitt went ten rounds of “bell to bell” action in the same Foxwoods ring, battling, (and that’s a distinct understatement) for Clampitt’s IWBF title. The bout resulted in a close ten round unanimous decision for the English fighter. It was ten rounds of nonstop action that should be a “lock” for “Fight of the Year” in the sport, with the only competition possibly being the December 10 rematch. There may have been a clinch or two somewhere in the ten rounds in June, but, if so, I missed it watching a tape of the fight a week after the “live” bout. Both women, purely and simply, “left everything in the ring” and the scorecard tally of 96-95 and 96-94 (2x) accurately reflected the closeness of the bout. It’s difficult to put into numbers or words the boxing skill and punching accuracy of both fighters that night in Connecticut; suffice it to say that the ten rounds were as good as the sport of Women’s boxing gets.
If Couch had stayed true to the current mindset of many of the top fighters in the sport today, she might have gone home to England, content with the IWBF belt and awaited challenges “from abroad.” She might have waited for someone to “come across the pond” and fight in England. Fortunately, Couch has gone an entire career doing things “her way” regardless of what is the norm; whether that “norm” was imposed by the English government, who, for years, threw roadblocks in front of Couch’s boxing career, or the “selective scheduling syndrome” that’s seems to inhabit so many fighters once they capture a title belt. Rather, Jane Couch did something that should serve as a guide-on for fighters, male and female; she stayed true to her nature of “going where the fights are” and agreed to make the first defense of her crown, not with an “easy payday” opponent, but, rather, against the woman who gave her a very busy night in June. Additionally, Couch agreed to travel back to Connecticut, Clampitt’s “home turf” for the bout. This is the type of object lesson too frequently absent in today’s sport and it’s as good an example for fighters on either sides of the ocean to make note of. For that fact alone Jane Couch should to be praised, as Jaime Clampitt has done in her pre-fight comments.
Jaime Clampitt is no less a laudatory figure in this scenario. It’s rare in sports, and particularly in boxing, when both fighters are the “good guys,” but that’s the case here. Clampitt took the June fight despite the fact that, shortly before the bout, her longtime trainer, “Tiny” Ricci, passed away. Then, following the razor-thin loss, Clampitt refused to use her obvious mental anguish over her trainer’s death as an excuse of any kind. Instead, Clampitt maintained a stoic silence and, it seems, started plotting a path to regain her title. On October 1, Clampitt warmed up for Couch with a win over perennial opponent Brenda Bell. Now, on December 10 Jaime Clampitt gets a chance, a well deserved chance, to regain the IWBF title.
Certain news reports have made reference to the decision in June being “Controversial,” but, in my mind, the only way that particular label applies is if “controversial” is being used as a synonym for “close.” It was a good, make that a great, close bout and Couch clearly won a razor-thin decision. Controversy, along with a “hometown” decision, were both commendably avoided and for that all the officials connected with that June bout are to be congratulated.
Thus, on December 10 the sport of Women’s boxing should receive “a shot in the arm” from a very likely source; the fact that two very good fighters are climbing into the ring with each other. It’s a long established and simple formula, which has, unfortunately, been rendered increasingly absent in a sport where the best fighters do not, often enough, look for the best fights. In fact, in too many cases, too many top fighters go out of their way to avoid competitive opponents. The bout in Connecticut on December 10 has the right fighters at the right time and, hopefully, it will serve as a big finish for Women’s boxing in 2004 and a direction for the sport in 2005.