Coal Miner's Daughter `In Class By Herself' Among Female Boxers

Promoter Don King represents more than a hundred professional boxers. One is a woman, Christy Martin, who was on her third Mike Tyson undercard last month in Las Vegas.

"I never thought it was realistic to think I'd be where I am now," said Martin, a coal miner's daughter from Itmann, W. Va.

Indeed, at age 27, Martin (34-2-2) has become the leading reason that women's boxing is being taken more seriously. She is midway through a multiyear contract with boxing's most prominent promoter.

She can now command five-figure paydays. And every time she gets in the ring, she converts skeptics into fans, with her 52-year-old trainer-husband having been one of the first.

Tyson, impressed with her skill and 25 knockouts, has requested videos of her fights. The trainer Emanuel Steward says she is "in a class by herself." And Sugar Ray Leonard remembers her "combinations, poise, discipline" in the ring. "She was," he said, "perpetual motion."

Dislikes "pioneer" label

Martin has achieved every fighter's fantasy - and broken every barrier to get there. The formula? Hard work. Talent. Good timing. A little luck. And strangely enough - in the sport most famous for hyperbole - normalcy.

Even though she has fought on some of the biggest stages in boxing, Martin walks without strutting, speaks without screaming and dresses most comfortably in sweats.

She has retained her friendly, slight Southern drawl and, trying to stay at 5-4 and 135 pounds, keeps a warm, hungry spot for what she lists first among the sacrifices she has made for the sport: her mother's lasagna. Her dreams are similarly modest: "owning a house and a pool."

If property was all she wanted, Martin could have transformed herself into a marketable caricature of herself by intensifying the pink and purple eye shadow she wears in the ring or by reddening the rose-colored lipstick that matches her pink satin robe. But she wants no part of the freak-show element that often typified women's boxing in the past.

Martin also resists the burden of being called a pioneer. "I'm not out to change boxing," she said. That she is female is simply a "twist"; she is, she says, an athlete first.

Martin grew up the consummate tomboy, playing catcher on her brother's Little League team and earning a college basketball scholarship as a self-described "scrapper with good instincts whose job was to steal, hustle" but who was roundly booed when she shot too much. Part of boxing's initial appeal, she admits, was the crowd support.

"I must have been crazy"

In 1987, as a freshman at Concord College in Athens, W. Va., Martin entered a "Toughwoman" contest on a dare. No experience was needed.

"I must have been crazy," she said. "I didn't know how to throw a hook, didn't know how to throw an uppercut." But by virtue of being in shape, she beat smokers and drinkers barroom brawl-style to take home the area title - three times.

When her mother found out, she cried. Her father reluctantly filled an old duffle bag with blankets, hoping the makeshift heavy bag would at least help her improve her boxing technique.

Little did they know how far the allure of applause and prize money ($1,000 per title) would push their daughter away from the future they had envisioned for her.

Coal mining was the family profession, from her father to both grandfathers and a younger brother, Randy. But Christy's father, John Salters, hoped his daughter would pursue a career less dangerous than his own, maybe as a teacher or coach. After all, she was about to graduate from Concord with honors in education.

However, the teacher-to-be decided to remain a student of boxing. Hearing that there was a good tutor in Bristol, Tenn., Christy and her mother, Joyce Salters, packed the car and, with their pet Pomeranian-Chihuahua Casey yipping in the back seat, drove south.

On New Year's Day 1991, the unlikely entourage arrived at the Bristol gym where Jim Martin was training Mark Carrier, a promising heavyweight whose father owned the Bristol International Raceway.

"I didn't want to train no woman," Jim Martin recalled. "I thought to myself, `I got a lady in my gym, I got a mother in my gym and a dog in my gym. My God, I've got to get rid of her.' "

She changed trainer's mind

In less than a week, however, the lady's work ethic, willingness to learn and warm smile made Martin think that "this girl could make me some money." A year later, she made him her husband.

The couple moved to Orlando, Fla., and Christy sparred regularly with men, including a 336-pounder who blackened her eyes. She eventually returned the favor.

In October 1993, thanks to a mutual friend, Don King invited the Martins to his office. After some persuading, a shy Christy Martin walked in, abandoned her inhibitions and began shadowboxing in front of King's desk.

"I did a few little moves, and he did his typical `heh-heh-heh' laugh," she said. Within five minutes, there was a contract to sign. Not a one-shot, let's-see-how-it-goes-if-the-crowd-likes-you-we-pay-you offer, like all her previous fight agreements.

King signed her to an exclusive four-year deal through 1997. Martin remains the first and only woman in King's stable of fighters.

King put her on a big ticket immediately - Julio Cesar Chavez versus Frankie Randall for Chavez's World Boxing Council superlightweight title in January 1994.

The MGM Grand's 15,000-seat Garden Center Arena was sold out. Martin, "not wanting to stink up the show," threw a flurry of head shots so fierce that the referee stopped her fight 40 seconds into the first round.

That spring, Martin fought again under Chavez-Randall. But it was Martin's fight, against Laura Serrano of Mexico, that came to a surprise conclusion: a draw after six rounds.

Rarely do Martin's bouts go the distance. The matchmaker Bobby Mitchell says that is a testament to her skill, not to a deficiency or dearth of opponents. "She wants to fight the best to prove she's the best," he said. "We look for the toughest fights we can find. I have four or five more fights I could line up for Christy."

Microscope "frustrating"

Before Mitchell met Martin, he said, he was against putting women on a show. "Once I saw Christy fight, I was just shocked," he said. "No words can describe how surprised I was at her ability, her style, technique, power and the way she carries herself in the ring."

Another skeptic, another convert.

On one hand, she relishes the fans she has won who appreciate her dynamic, crisp and creative punching style, yet on the other, she admits that "sometimes it's frustrating, being under a microscope, always being critiqued" as a representative of all women who fight.

"How can I do anything more spectacular," she asked, "than knock out my opponents?"