The self-described Mexican white girl thought she could fight, but that changed the day she walked into Pacifica’s tiny Baby Face Boxing gym and met Martha Salazar.
“The first time…I couldn’t even finish a round,” Heather Frambach managed to mutter in between exhausted gasps, the kind that come and go so fast they leave the lungs stinging with hurt. “For some reason…six minutes of boxing…it’s hell.”
Going six minutes with Salazar–the former women’s boxing heavyweight champion of the world–should be, but Frambach withstood that hell in preparation to make history.
Frambach will take on fellow novice amateur Sarah Kozuma on Aug. 31 at the Sports House in Redwood City at the fourth annual Beautiful Brawlers event –an all-female invitational, showcasing rising talent in the amateur boxing ranks. The card will feature more than 20 bouts and some of the best young fighters from across the country, including two boxers from Canada and two from Puerto Rico.
Frambach and Kozuma are the first heavyweights to ever fight in a Beautiful Brawlers event. A heavyweight bout–let alone an unpaid amateur one–between two women was nothing short of impossible once upon a time, a fact that Salazar hasn’t forgotten.
Salazar and close friend Blanca Gutierrez–owner of Baby Face Boxing and founder of Beautiful Brawlers–were amateur kick boxers in the 1990s. Or at least they tried to be, as both struggled to carve out a competitive living fighting in a man’s world.
“As women, [trainers] would look at us and say, ‘What! Women don’t box,’” said Salazar. “They would treat us like crap.”
It was around then when all of the doubts and laughs became too much for Gutierrez to bottle up.
“You know what Martha,” Gutierrez turned and said to Salazar. “We should just make a show with all girls, women, and that’s it. One day we’ll do it.”
That day came in 2011 when the first Beautiful Brawlers show finally debuted.
“I almost cried,” Salazar said. “Blanca was like, ‘I told you we could do it.’ And we’re doing it.”
Despite such amateur venues and trainers, and competition being non-existent in Salazar’s fighting day, the big girl from Ocotlán, Jalisco, Mexico–who started fighting after getting jumped by three Samoan girls from her Visitacion Valley neighborhood when she was 13 for looking at them funny–fought on.
After debuting at age 31 in 2001, the 5-foot-9, 230-pound Salazar captured the Women’s International Boxing Federation heavyweight title by knocking out favorite Pamela London in Guyana in 2004. The winner had been promised a $50,000 fight with Jackie Frazier-Lyde, daughter of former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier. But upon seeing “The Shadow”–a rather appropriate ring alias given Salazar’s size–Frazier-Lyde backed out. And with her went the $50,000 payday.
“I don’t do it for the money,” Salazar shrugged. “‘Cause if I would do it for the money, shoot, I’d be starving right now. I just love it. I love the sport. I love the fighting.”
That longing for the prize ring is what lured Salazar from a 6-year retirement in 2013, when she fought the No. 1 ranked heavyweight in the world, Sonya Lamonakis. Despite being a little slower, a little heavier, and a little grayer, Salazar didn’t lose a round that night.
“She’s got everything you need for a fighter,” said Salazar’s trainer, 71-year-old trainer Ed Clemens. “She’s big, and you’d think she don’t have the air [meaning stamina]…she’s got a heart like a lion, and she’s smart. And to be a champion, you have to think.”
And in watching the girls who’ll compete Sunday night, many of whom have Olympic aspirations for 2016, Salazar still thinks.
“Sometimes I wish I could’ve been there. Sometimes I tell my mom, ‘Man, I was born too early. You should’ve waited a little longer,’” Salazar laughs. “But it’s an awesome feeling to see how far we’ve come. Hopefully one day, these young girls will make that money that these guys make. We put in the same hard work, time and dedication.”