Christy Martin is an angry woman – screaming that California boxing is run by sexists and that she will never fight there again. Christy is a professional boxer with almost 60 fights to her credit and that means she can go from 0 to rage in a split second. But what is really making her crazy now is that she lost her last fight through referee disqualification.
The referee stopped the fight after the ring doctor determined she was too hurt to continue. Now she is in a major snit because the California State Athletic Commission just refused to overturn what she called a sexist decision in her last fight.
The commission met today in L.A. and heard testimony about the referee’s decision to stop Christy’s June fight against Dakota Stone after the fight doctor determined Christy’s hand was too injured to keep fighting. Christy’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, is a well-known feminist lawyer who had argued the ref would never have stopped the fight if it were between men.
Gloria, who called the decision an “outrage,” isn’t giving up without more fighting and claims she will continue to explore Christy’s options.
I looked at the pictures and stopping the fight definitely seems like it was the right decision – regardless of the sex of the people in the ring. The ref and the fight doctor have a super serious responsibility to try to prevent permanent damage to the fighters. Given the obvious dangers of getting punched in the head (or body) repeatedly, the fact that there are still people stupid enough to get into the ring means that they need all the help they can get.