Serious, smart and sexy with a sledgehammer-like right hand, Laura Saperstein has touched off something of a mini-media frenzy in the UK while quickly becoming one of the hottest prospects in British boxing since making her pro debut last November..
The former highly successful corporate lawyer has been the focus of countless newspapers articles and the subject of television programs, where she has on occasion proceeded to give painful boxing lessons to unsuspecting presenters.
Despite her unusual career path, the native Australian is no mere novelty, having ended her amateur career as an undefeated British lightweight champion but is more suited to the professional game as anyone who has witnessed her gritty performance last Autumn in South London can readily attest to.
“The good thing about Laura is that she goes against the grain as far as female boxing is concerned,” said Saperstein’s trainer/manager Chris Hall. “Because one of the problems of the sport is that the girls don’t fight hard enough. They’re not strong enough and there’s a little bit of very amateur style of boxing going on. But with Laura, she’s very, very strong, very aggressive and she does hit hard. I’m very hopeful that she’s actually going to get more people that watch her fights than go to the bar, because she is actually quite entertaining.”
Promoter Frank Maloney recently signed “Boxergirl” to a four fight contract and she’s been hard at work preparing for her return to the ring which will take place on the undercard of the Tony Oakey – Peter Haymer British light heavyweight title bout happening this Friday, February 1 at York Hall in London.
While Saperstein is eager to face her opponent, former Ukrainian amateur standout Olena Varchenko, on Friday, the 36 year old is still adjusting to the rigors of the paid ranks. “When I had my first pro fight in November, I didn’t notice that I didn’t have a headguard on, I didn’t notice the difference in the gloves; that didn’t really bother me,” said Saperstein.
“The main difference from the amateur game was the pressure of the occasion. You can’t prepare properly to fight because you’re running around trying to sell tickets, then you’re doing all the media and there was a lot of people in the venue who wanted to see me fail, people who wanted to say that women can’t box.”
But Saperstein didn’t fail as she went up a weight class to light welter and pounded out a one sided points victory over seasoned Bulgarian Borislava Goranova at a packed Tooting Leisure Centre. Showing sound fundamental skills, Saperstein backed up her iron chinned foe throughout the contest and found a home for some massive right hands that won her the admiration of the capacity crowd.
“I was boxing someone who was very durable and very experienced,” recalled Saperstein. “She was also heavier as I had to box whoever I could; I had to take an opponent at the weight that we could get someone. It was a lot harder to box someone heavier and make her feel my shots, although I did make her feel them. I wasn’t too keen on boxing heavier but that’s the pro game.”
It takes years for most fighters to build up the kind of massive press interest that the ex-lawyer has generated during her still burgeoning career but at her core, Laura Saperstein is still a novice professional but with her feet firmly on the ground, she has no illusions as to the steps she must take if she is to succeed in the most difficult sport of them all.
“Right now I just feel I need to learn my craft and develop as a boxer as it’s only my second professional fight,” she said. “I didn’t have a long amateur career and like every other new pro I’ve got a lot to learn and I want to get the opportunity to do that as quickly as I can and just move up the rankings, fight different people and try to work out what weight really suits me as a pro. Hopefully I’ll be boxing for a title within the next year and a half, providing everything goes well.”
“I came over to England from Australia to work as a lawyer and have been here six and half years. I was 32 when I started training and I never, ever assumed that I could have been any sort of boxer, let alone a professional one. It’s a funny sort of story the way it’s come around that Frank Maloney is actually the one that’s going to be promoting me because he promoted the first boxing show that I ever saw and it was there that I fell so in love with the sport.”
Frank Maloney Promotions presents “The Return” featuring Tony Oakey vs. Peter Haymer for the Light Heavyweight Championship of Great Britain at York Hall in Bethnal Green, London, England on Friday, February 1, 2008.
A full undercard features top heavyweight John McDermott, flashy super feather Kaash “The Bash” Bhatia, light heavyweights Tony Salem and Courtney Fry, welterweights Mark Thompson and Yassine El Maachi, lightweights Lee Cook and Danny Harding along with super feather Henry Castle, welterweights Scott Woolford and Jamie Radford, light welter Ross Hewitt and Women’s boxing sensation Laura Saperstein.
Tickets are priced at £75 Ringside and £40 Open Seating and are available by logging onto www.frankmaloney.com or by calling the Box Office at 0871 226 1508. Doors open at 6:45PM with first bell at 7PM.
Sky Sports will televise live on SS1 starting at 9:30PM.