Boxers box, and Ann Wolfe is a boxer who wants to ply her trade. In the absence of what she considers quality female opponents, this summer the 34-year-old from Texas will enter the ring against a male fighter in a bout that already has been sanctioned by the state of Mississippi. Recently, the plain-spoken, oft-profane Wolfe took a break from a workout in her gym in Austin and pulled no punches in discussing her work.
Anthony Cotton: How did the idea of you fighting a man first come up?
Ann Wolfe: Because I got tired of trying to get the female fighters to fight. I.m not saying they.re scared, but they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by fighting me. And I.ve been fighting for $1, $1,000 – the kind of fighter I am, I shouldn.t be fighting for no thousand dollars – and I give them most of the money. You know how much money I made in my only loss, fighting a girl who had half as many fights as I had? One dollar.
AC: You made one dollar?
AW: One dollar, because in the state of Texas, you have to pay (the state). I think she made $6,000. When I fought in Hawaii and won my first title, I made $1,000 and the girl I fought made $5,000. Nobody wants to fight me, so for me to get somebody, I always have to take the lesser amount of money.
AC: For the fight in Mississippi, you.re going to get $100,000.
AW: That.s not counting the pay-per-view and everything else. If I.m going to fight a male fighter, a man with the same caliber skills that I have … at first I always said I.d never fight a male.
AC: Some would argue your skills couldn.t be as good.
AW: A regular man? Man, I knock guys out in this gym every day. Lord, have mercy. That is not true.
AC: Which weight are you going to fight at?
AW: I want to fight at about 162. Right now, I fight at 175, 168, but I had to come up from junior middleweight to middleweight to light heavyweight. Let me tell you something, and I have no reason to lie: I will beat the (daylights) out of an average man.
AC: An average man, or an average professional boxer?
AW: An average man, not an average professional boxer.
AC: Are you going to fight a boxer or just some guy off the street?
AW: I.m going to fight a boxer, a boxer with my skills. And for a lot of people who don.t know boxing, let me tell you something, there are amateurs who I couldn.t beat and pros who I can. I.ve never sparred with a girl in my life. This is not a sideshow or a joke to me, and anybody who thinks it.s a joke should see me fight. I.ve done hundreds and hundreds of rounds with male opponents who have to fight me. There.s not a woman on the face of the earth who hits harder than I do.
AC: Let.s play a little word association game here. I.ll say a name, and you tell me what you think. Boxer) Christy Martin.
AW: She.s a fighter.
AC: Why don.t you fight her?
AW: She won.t fight me! I.ve asked Christy Martin. She.s little. Christy Martin had the opportunity to fight me. I had to go up three weight classes because no one would fight.
AC: Mia St. John (a professional fighter who has posed for Playboy magazine).
AW: Oh, please! This is ridiculous. I don.t even want to have this interview, because I don.t play games. This is crazy to me. If this isn.t serious …
AC: It.s serious; I.m just mentioning her name.
AW: I went from junior middleweight and won two titles and nobody would fight. I went to middleweight, won two titles, nobody would fight. Super middleweight, won two titles, nobody would fight. I moved up to light heavyweight and the heavyweight champion (Vonda Ward) came down. She was 6-feet-6. I knocked her out and she was unconscious for five hours.
AC: People got on your case about that fight because after you knocked her out, you danced around her.
AW: I don.t care! I.m a fighter, a real fighter. I do what my heart tells me to do. I love being an American because we agree to disagree. People thought that was wrong for me to do. I.ve been lying on the floor with someone dancing around me. You know what I did? I stood up and bowed to her because she beat me. And I came back and destroyed her. That.s not something you do on the spur of the moment; a real fighter will tell you it just comes out. I.ll never say I.m sorry. That was eight weeks of work!
AC: Everyone says the logical fight would be against Leila Ali (the daughter of Muhammad Ali).
AW: Leila Ali will not fight! So what am I supposed to do? They offered Lelia Ali $500,000; I was going to get $100,000. She still didn.t fight.
AC: You have two daughters. How old are they?
AW: My baby child is 14, and I have a 12-year-old.
AC: What do they think of Mom being a boxer?
AW: They know they.re not sleeping outside no more. I.m not sleeping outside another night. Both my parents died when I was 18 and nobody said, .You know what? We.re not going to let Ann sleep outside anymore because she.s a woman.. People walked over me outside with two babies, sleeping on the street. They looked me like I was garbage. So when I do something to try and feed my children … look, I.m not saying I can beat an elite male boxer, but there are thousands and thousands of boxers who won.t reach the top 100.
AC: How high in the rankings do you think your opponent will be?
AW: That.s where the trick comes in. The realness of this fight will come from fighting the right opponent. It might be a fighter with five fights, it might be a fighter with 10 fights. I.m not saying it will be a fighter with 30 fights; a .Sugar. Shane Mosley or Roy Jones, that.s ridiculous.
AC: Why boxing?
AW: That.s all I could do. I have a sixth-grade education. Everybody talks about getting a degree or a GED, but I love boxing, I love to fight. I fought in the streets. I fought all the time.
AC: Who took you from the streets into the gym?
AW: I did. I met my coach and I asked him, .Do you train girls?. He said no. I said, .I.m a fighter; if you train me, I.ll do the best I can.. And he trained me like I was a fighter; he didn.t train me like I was a girl. My daughter plays football and I tell her when the fast ones come at her she has to be strong, and when the strong ones come she has to be fast. She has to have the best of both worlds.
AC: When you fight this guy, and you beat him, do you have any idea about the grief he.s going to get? Will you care?
AW: You know what I say? If I find somebody truly close to my skill level, I want it to where the fight can go either way. I don.t want someone I can dominate; I don.t want someone who can dominate me. I know the caliber fighter that I am; it will be a good fight if there are two people who can fight like me.
AC: Is there anything that makes you feel like you.re doing this for women everywhere?
AW: No! This ain.t got nothing to do with women, or women.s lib or anything like that. It.s got nothing to do with males and females at all. If the girls won.t fight, I.m just looking for a good fighter who I can fight while I.m still in my prime. It has nothing to do – zero – with a man fighting a woman, the way that people would think it does, if a girl can beat a boy, or anything like that.
Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
