A PART OF his appeal is to swooning women, but
Oscar De La Hoya would have been recognized as a premier boxer even if he more closely
would have been recognized as a premier boxer even if he more closely
resembled Quasimodo than
Antonio Banderas. Guys, who constitute the vast majority of fight fans, are drawn to a male fighter's punching power, not his matinee-idol profile, if he's fortunate enough to still have one.
Not so with female fighters, who still have to sell a little sizzle with the steak to gain attention from testosterone-charged audiences. Gloria Steinem no doubt would disapprove, but there you have it.
"There is a double standard," admits longtime promoter and matchmaker Don Elbaum, who usually becomes involved with women's boxing only if he discovers a comely young thing to hype. It doesn't hurt, of course,
if that person also can mix it up a bit inside the ropes without
suffering too much noncosmetic facial alteration.
Elbaum had a nice run some years back with Jen Childers, who would have been as fitting a choice to do a photo shoot for Victoria's Secret as for Everlast. For a time he also had a sultry Latin beauty of a ring announcer, Patricia Rosario, who never was going to be confused with Ed Derian.
Friday night, at Phoenixville Area High, Elbaum is putting on a card that will be headlined by the 10-round junior welterweight matchup of local favorite Harry Joe Yorgey (17-0-1, 8 KOs) and James Wayka (14-5, 8 KOs), which will receive the more standardized version of his politically incorrect showmanship.
Only weeks after the University of Illinois retired its Chief Illiniwek mascot for being racially insensitive, Elbaum is touting Wayka, a member of the Menominee tribe, as a full-blooded Native American. Except that Wayka, who lives in Minnesota, really isn't.
Speaking to Wayka via cell phone recently, Elbaum seemed surprised when informed of that inconvenient detail.
"You're not?" Elbaum said when Wayka said that he wasn't 100 percent Native American. "Well, you are now. By the way, can you ride a horse? And how would you feel about wearing a feathered headdress?"
But Elbaum doesn't need DNA tests to convince him that his new discovery, welterweight Olivia Fonseca, is a certifiable beauty, which is why he's heavily publicizing the 19-year-old
beautician/bartender's four-round pro debut against Jasmine Davis (1-4).
"Her main thing is boxing, but because of her looks I think she's going to be a crossover star,"
Elbaum says of Fonseca, who is of Puerto Rican-Colombian descent. "She'll be like Laila Ali."
Toward that end, Elbaum took Fonseca to New York last week for a fashion makeover by top hairstyling and makeup artists.
Fonseca - who also holds a trainer's license - says she has been enthralled by boxing since she was 11.
"My sister [Christina, now 23] started boxing and my dad [Edward] made her bring me to the Jack Costello Boxing Club with her," Fonseca said. "That's how I started.
"The funny thing, though, is that Christina only boxed for
5 months or so. She was a teenager. She got her driver's license and had a boyfriend. She got a job. You know how it goes. But I was a kid, a tomboy. I fell in love with the sport and stuck with it."
Women's boxing has fallen on hard times of late, with such icons as Christy Martin (46-5-2, 31 KOs) and Lucia Rijker (17-0, 14 KOs) both in their late 30s and nearing the end of their
careers. Martin has lost three of her last four bouts, and Rijker, who played Billie "The Blue Bear" in "Million Dollar Baby," has for all intents and purposes already packed it in, not having fought since 2004.
The long-reigning queen of
boxing's female brigade, former Playboy model Mia St. John (43-8-2, 18 KOs), still draws her share of wolf whistles, but she's 39 and eventually will face her toughest opponent yet - gravity.
Ali (24-0, 21 KOs), youngest daughter of Muhammad Ali, qualifies as the face of women's boxing in more ways than one, but she has an eye on Hollywood and is now sashaying across the ballroom floor with partner
Maksim Chmerkovskiy on the hit TV series, "Dancing With The Stars." It wouldn't shock anyone if she decides to rechannel her energies from the ring to the screen.
So who's going to carry the banner for women's boxing when the old guard steps aside?
"It will come back," Elbaum predicts, "but it will take someone like Olivia to do it."
Split decision
Philadelphia trainer Derek "Bozy" Ennis says he really doesn't care who wins the May 5 super welterweight megabout
Philadelphia trainer says he really doesn't care who wins the May 5 super welterweight megabout
between WBC champion Oscar De La Hoya (38-4, 30 KOs) and pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather (37-0, 24 KOs). That's only natural, because
Ennis-trained Philly fighters serve as sparring partners for each superstar.
Ennis' son, Derek "Pooh"
Ennis Jr. (10-1-1, 7 KOs), left for Puerto Rico last week to train with De La Hoya; a couple of weeks before that, Anthony "The Messenger" Thompson (23-1, 17 KOs) headed out to Las Vegas to assist Mayweather.
Still another Ennis-trained fighter, junior welterweight
contender Demetrius Hopkins (26-0-1, 10 KOs), is promoted by De La Hoya's company, Golden Boy Promotions.
"I really like Oscar and Floyd," the senior Ennis said. "Whoever wins, it really doesn't make a
difference to me. I come out ahead either way." *
Send e-mail to fernanb@phillynews.com