Plague of Strength

When people talk about the greatest female fighter of all time, you run across a lot of names- Ronda Rousey (judo, pro wrestling, and mma), Layla Ali (boxing), Lily Uquidez-Rodriguez (kickboxing and boxing), Lucia Rijker (kickboxing and boxing), Anissa Meksen (Thai kickboxing)and hell, you might even hear Chyna’s (pro wrestling) name mentioned for being a brawny badass. One name you don’t hear often enough is Christy Martin (b. 1968), and as you can see from the video that is a major oversight on everyone’s behalf.

I grew up watching Christy Martin demolish every woman she fought on the undercards of Mike Tyson fights back in the 90s. Unlike the undercards of today, Tyson’s undercard was much of the fun, since Don King stacked those cards with knockout artists like Christy Martin so people would feel like they got their money’s worth even when Tyson KO’d his opponent in 20 seconds. If you’re watching her highlights, you can see the woman was a 1 woman wrecking crew, and every punch she threw was loaded with so much unmitigated malice that she looked like Jack Dempsey in a wig committing attempted murder on some hapless woman in the ring.

I am not exaggerating when I say that this woman hit so hard that no man I knew wanted to fight any part of that 5’4″ 135lb substitute teacher in the 90s, and dudes had their misogyny turned all the way up when regarding female fighters in that era. The only man who wanted to put hands on that woman as her shitbag ex-husband, who somehow escaped justified murder at her hands. He ruined her career in his attempt to ruin her life, but that didn’t undo the massive effect that Christy Martin had on the world at large, because after seeing that coal miner’s daughter fight no one dared suggest women were too frail to fight, and Martin was so popular she became the first female boxer on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

So all hail @christy_r_martin and her badass self! This trailblazing badass almost single-handedly validated an entire gender’s participation in fight sports.

And yo:

Check out her fight against Dierdre Gogarte on Youtube– they try to KO each other with every punch.

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