Proud as Punch

The voice was soft, the mood serene, the manner reserved but friendly.

There was no clue that the woman sitting in the restaurant of a Beverly Hills hotel Tuesday morning was the most feared female fighter in the world, a ferocious puncher who spars with men and searches for women willing to get into the ring with her.

But a reporter interviewing Lucia Rijker stripped away that pleasant veneer with three words: Mia St. John.

St. John, as well known for her appearance in Playboy as for her appearances in the ring, had been scheduled to face Rijker on the undercard of Saturday’s Lennox Lewis-Vitali Klitschko heavyweight title fight at Staples Center. But St. John dropped out because, she said, her fight was not going to be part of HBO’s telecast.

“Why do all you guys in the media make such a big deal out of Lucia Rijker?” St. John asked several days ago. “Who has she beaten? Look at her list of opponents and look at mine. There isn’t much difference.”

Asked if St. John’s comments were fair, Rijker’s voice became determined, her mood agitated, her manner aggressive. She got the look in her eyes that opponents describe before they feel the fury of her punches.

“That bothers me,” she said. “Why should I have to defend myself against Mia St. John, someone who uses everything they have, and I mean everything they have as a woman, to get ahead? She is the most political person I’ve ever seen in boxing. She’s nothing but a boxing wannabe.”

The incident illustrates Rijker’s frustration. Her fight against Jane Couch on Saturday’s card will be her first in 16 months, only her fourth in the last four years. The inactivity has been caused by a serious shoulder injury, an extended movie role and a failure to find opponents. At one point, opponents canceled out of four consecutive matches.

She thought she was going to be the featured female fighter for Bob Arum’s Top Rank boxing organization, only to lose that role to St. John.

She thought she was going to be the featured fighter for the now-defunct America Presents boxing organization on the undercard of Mike Tyson’s fights, but Tyson kept having cancellation problems of his own making.

Rijker is 15-0 with 14 knockouts, four of those coming in the first round. St. John is right about the list of Rijker’s opponents. It’s not impressive. Truth is, though, not many female fighters’ are.

So why this praise for Rijker?

Emanuel Steward, considered boxing’s premier trainer, agreed to manage Rijker a year ago. That speaks volumes.

Steward had heard stories about the phenomenal female athlete from Amsterdam.

At 6, she was training in judo. At 13, she tried fencing, won the Amsterdam championship and then the junior championship of the Netherlands.

At 15, she tried kickboxing and won four world titles en route to a 36-0 record with 25 knockouts.

Boxing seemed the next logical step, but not to Rijker.

“I never liked boxing,” she said. “In kickboxing, the focus is on muscles that will heal when injured. In boxing, the focus is on punches to the head. Unfortunately, damaged brain cells do not heal.

“I looked at boxing as another form of prostitution, people selling their bodies.”

Despite her reservations, Rijker tried boxing when she moved to Los Angeles, making her professional debut in 1996 at the Olympic Auditorium. She needed only 97 seconds to beat her first opponent, Melinda Robinson.

Steward first saw Rijker in 1997, while training Lewis to defend his title against Henry Akinwande. Steward was wrapping Lewis’ hands when he happened to glance up at a television screen. There was Rijker, pounding away at Gwen Smith in Biloxi, Miss.

“Did you see that girl slip that punch?” Steward excitedly asked Lewis. “And the way she came back with a right hand? That’s the woman boxer I’ve been hearing about.”

Steward says he has signed on with Rijker for the short term. Now 35, she wants to quit boxing, get married -- she doesn’t have a steady boyfriend at the moment -- and have a family.

But first, she wants to step into the ring against a major opponent and quell the doubters like St. John.

Assuming Rijker gets by Couch, considered Britain’s best female fighter, Steward is hoping Rijker can fight Christy Martin, the once-unchallenged best female fighter in the world.

Steward said, “I don’t want to think that someday Lucia will be walking with her kids and someone will point to her and say, ‘There goes the greatest female fighter who ever lived, but she never had a defining fight.’ That would be so sad.”