“The Go-Go Girls have been pensioned
off. The only dancing from now on will be in the ring,” says
promoter Sebastian Louven. With 21-year-old
dental-technician-turned-professional-boxer Pia “Madam Butterfly”
Mazelanik from nearby Gelsenkirchen negotiating the last treacherous
rungs of the ladder to a world title, they can sell out the
Juliushalle on fight night now in Dorsten without ‘Show und
Strip’.
“The Dorsten Fight Night in the Juliushalle promises pure
excitement,” wrote Jo Gernoth on the 10th in Der Westen. “Pia
Mazelanik is reaching for the European bantamweight crown.” And
topping the bill there on Saturday, Mazelanik managed without
slipping to inch clear of 33-year-old Doris Köhler of Austria with a
unanimous decision over ten rounds. “The local matador – to the
delight of an enthusiastic crowd – proved the better woman in the
ring and was the rightful winner of the vacant title in the 53.5 kg
weight class,” opined
Ruhr Nachrichten
alongside a photo showing Jürgen Lutz, Vice President of the Women’s
International Boxing Federation (WIBF), fastening the European title
belt around the waist of “the exhausted but happy fighter”.
But while Lutz agreed she was a worthy champion and that it was a
good fight, in which Doris Köhler proved that at 33 she was by no
means ready for the scrapheap, there were aspects of Mazelanik’s
performance that gave rise to concern.
She has clean, fast hands and – in the best shape of her life here,
as she herself avowed – is hardly lacking in strength, and yet
there’s no spite in her punching. “She has to work on that,” warns
Lutz. “One or two of her very precise shots could, with a bit more
steam behind them, have brought the fight to a quick end. What she
also lacks is the savvy of a professional boxer : In the last few
rounds, she let herself get drawn into infighting with Doris. That
kind of thing can easily backfire if you get caught by a so-called
‘lucky punch’. In other respects, though, Pia reminds me of my best
pupil : Regina Halmich.”
Counselling a professional boxer to avoid risks is as daft, almost,
as telling a springboard diver to try not to get wet. The absence,
too, of risk, of challenge, of excitement, can prove fatal ; it
turns on how you’re wired. The darkest alleys are found through
aimless wandering.
“Every boxer is aware of the residual risk of suffering a severe
injury,” Mazelanik told Gernoth. “It goes with the territory ; and a
bit of fear is a positive thing : It keeps you alert.”
Everyone’s last dance, in any case, is with Death. His name is on
our dance cards when they’re issued. For the gavotte, the jig, the
galliard, we can choose our partners, but – promise it to whomever
we will – his claim is vested to the pavane.
Besides, Lutz wasn’t saying to avoid risks altogether. Only that
Mazelanik could minimize them if, with those fast, accurate hands of
hers, she began shooting opponents dead when they’re in her
cross-hairs instead of winging them and giving them the chance to
fire back. There are professions – dentistry, for example, as she
herself must know – in which “they that have power to hurt and will
do none” can show mercy to others (the poor, gaping hippo in the
chair, for instance) without incurring added risk themselves ; but
boxing’s not one of them.
On the ladder above her, for example, is one Zulina Muñoz of Mexico,
who must have levelled more losers in her twenty-one years than the
Grim Reaper at sixty. Passing up a chance to bury her, if one is
offered, is like whistling the pavane in earshot of the
Kapellmeister, because you can rest (as in R.I.P.) assured that the
She-Wolf won’t return the favour if and when you show her the hair
on your chinny-chin-chin.
