Gogarty back to evangelise Ireland

BOXING promoter Don King has done everything he said he would do. So far so good for Deirdre Gogarty. The WIBF super featherweight world champion arrived in Ireland on Saturday hoping to evangelise the Irish public. No freaky muscles. No scared face or deep voice. No swollen knuckles and no broken nose. Gogarty will find little difficulty in swaying public perception about the female fight game.

Her natural bashfulness and slight 125lb frame is as unremarkable as many of the young women coming in through the arrivals lounge. This is the woman who is considered the best pound for pound female fighter in the world. She is a boxer who regularly takes on opponents well out of her own weight division, something her male counterparts would never consider.

Last year when Gogarty fought and narrowly lost to the biggest name in the sport in the US, Christy Martin, she was fighting an opponent over 10lb heavier than herself. Martin was essentially two weight divisions above the Irish girl. Bravery says her supporters, folly say the critics.

"I'd fight her again in a heart beat. It bothers me still to this day that I lost that fight," says Gogarty.

Two television cameras seek her out and the banners are unfurled - WELCOME DEE OUR WORLD CHAMPION. It's clear that many of the people outside of her own group at the airport are unsure of who Gogarty is or what she has won.

As she holds he WIBF belt high in the air, a perplexed look spreads around the arrivals hall. So slight is Gogarty's featherweight physique that the trophy's enormity seems to bear down on her. But it is seldom that the triumphant owner of a world title bell wears a cotton dress and gold ear rings.

Gogarty has not been back in Ireland for 18 months. Since her family last saw her on home soil, she has given up her job in graphic design, taken to full-time training and become the super featherweight champion of the world.

Her world championship win came last March when she out punched Bonnie Canino in New Orleans, Louisiana, and won with a unanimous decision. Then in April she scored a 68-second knockout over Monique Strohman on a Don King promoted show.

"I gave up so much and people have put so much into me. I gave up my whole life in Ireland to go to America. I wasn't going to come back with nothing to show for it," she says.

"Now I think I can be champion for as long as I want - so long as keep competing in my own weight division. It's so difficult finding contests that I've had to fight a lot out of my division. That's where I've found difficulties. I can always say that one loss was a bad loss. The others I think have been pretty controversial - being a foreigner in another person's home town.

Hometown decisions are not the only thing to have hit below the belt. Indifference by some sections of boxing and outrage from others has sharpened her instincts. Teaming up with a promoter like Don King now gives Gogarty enough muscle to concentrate on her sport rather than dismantle the barricades of prejudice. And that's what it has been.

It is only recently that Irish boxing has been forced to consider the prospect of female competitors both at amateur and professional level. In the past the same chauvinistic medical babble that kept women out of distance running events for so long has consistently reared its head.

The truth is that no real medical studies have been carried out to establish if boxing is more damaging to women than it is to men. And, as it is clearly damaging to men anyway, it seems illogical that such a fuss has been made over the participation of women. In the past the male patricians of the sport have decided that it is their prerogative to damage themselves by boxing but to prevent women from doing the same.

While there should be justifiable concern about Gogarty boxing out of her division, women's boxing is significantly less brutal. Rounds last two minutes instead of three and both fighters must wear breast protectors. In addition there are compulsory pregnancy tests before each bout.

As of now Gogarty is probably the only world champion who is not allowed to perform in her own country, although that may change at a meeting scheduled for June of this year.

"With the annual convention coming up, that will hopefully give the go-ahead that women be allowed to box," she explains. "The response from the Boxing Union of Ireland has been positive and I'm pleased with that. It looks like I might box here before the end of the year.

"I've achieved my ambition of fighting in America and winning a world title. The next thing now is to fight in Ireland. My manager, Beau Williford, and Don King are working very hard on getting a promotion together but my first defence will be on the Tyson-Holyfield card. I believe I'll be on the card rather than Martin.

"Don King was a major, major deal for me and I have to say that everything he said he'd do, he's done and you can't ask for anymore than that. He's been good to me and my manager has worked with him in the past. I'm happy with the situation and I feel it's a big opportunity."

Gogarty knows that it will take time for people on this side of the Atlantic to embrace her as they have done Ireland's other most successful professionals - Barry McGuigan, Steve Collins and Wayne McCullough. The liberal concepts of equality that are assumed in America take more time to find root in Ireland. It has always irked the boxer that she has had to leave her country to pursue a sport which she loved.

"The boxers in America treat the women with respect because they know that they work as hard, they have the same skills and they are athletes just like them. Women haven't been given the same exposure over here but people are real excited about it in the US."

McCullough has attended several of Gogarty's fights and she has boxed on the undercard to one of his in Denver, Colorado. But to fight on the undercard to a Tyson-Holyfield contest in Las Vegas on June 28th is as important as it can get for Gogarty's career. She will spend some weeks in Ireland before travelling back for an intensive three-week training stint in the lead up to the fight and although she does not yet know who her opponent is, confidence is brimming.