Rijker Ruptures Tendon

Lucia Rijker, who had been scheduled to fight Christy Martin on July 30 at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Events Center for a million-dollar purse, ruptured her left Achilles’ tendon Tuesday while training in a Las Vegas gym. The 37-year-old Rijker is scheduled to undergo surgery today, and will be out at least four months.

“Lucia is very, very down,” said trainer Emanuel Steward, who has been working with the fighter, a native of the Netherlands. “She has been looking forward to this fight for years, and has been training for it since March, but you can’t do nothing about it. We’ll just have to deal with it.”

Rijker, who was unavailable for comment because she was traveling to Los Angeles for the surgery, vowed through Steward to go through with the match against Martin when she recovers. Promoter Bob Arum won’t make such a firm commitment.

“This kind of thing can happen,” Arum said. “It can happen to males, females, even promoters. I ruptured my Achilles’ tendon 10 years ago while playing tennis, so I know how arduous the recovery can be. It can take months and months. Who knows what will happen? At my age (73), half a year seems like a long time, so we’ll have to see.To say now that I will reschedule it would be stupid.”

The $1 million to be given to the winner would have been the most for a woman’s bout. Arum had come up with the figure after Rijker played a prominent role in last year’s Academy Award-winning movie “Million Dollar Baby.”

But the public’s enthusiasm for a female match between 37-year-olds, each of whom had fought only three times in the last 3 1/2 years, was underwhelming. About 2,000 seats had been sold in an arena that can hold more than 12,000.

“I think the pay-per-view [numbers] would have been very good,” Arum said. “We were not setting any records at the box office, but, at the end of the day, I think we would have sold 5,000 to 6,000 tickets.”

The injury occurred while Rijker was sparring.

“Her foot stepped into [an indentation] in the canvas between the seams,” trainer Freddie Roach said. “That buckled her ankle. It was very painful. She couldn’t put any weight on it.”

Because Rijker could not immediately get an MRI exam, she had to wait until Wednesday to learn the extent of the injury.

“Realistically, she won’t be ready until December,” Steward said, “and I know the clock is ticking on both she and Christy Martin. But this fight should take place. It would be great for women’s boxing. This fight makes sense. Just as a fan, it’s a fight I want to see.”

The injury will also force the postponement of the World Boxing Council light-flyweight title match between champion Eric Ortiz and Brian Viloria.