Marlen Esparza Wants Her Minute!
On November 2, Marlen Esparza (7-0, 1 KO’s) and Seniesa “Super Bad” Estrada (17-0, 7 KO’s) will collide in a true bad blood grudge match. Even though the action is sure to be top notch, the fisticuffs will not be the only highlight of the fight. This is because when they do square-off, they will do so in 3-minute rounds. This is huge because female fighters have been trying mightily to compete at the same three-minute rounds that the men do.
LEVELING THE FIELD
On the one hand, sure the women want to showcase their skills on the same level playing field as do the men. At the same time, the women want to box in 3-minute rounds to further their case that they should receive the same level of pay that the men do. Traditionally, promoters have been quick to say that because females don’t fight as long as the men, they should not be paid as much as the men.
This rationale has remained extremely vexing to female fighters. A huge portion of them don’t prefer sticking with the standard 2-minute rounds. One of the chief reasons, some would argue excuse, that female boxers have been condemned to the 2-minute periods is due to safety reasons. In the past, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman has indicated that there is medical research to substantiate this claim.
“My stance on that is that look, I’m a woman, right. This is me, this is what I do. I’ve been doing this for my whole life and I don’t think that’s the case. I would say, I am fighting someone that is my equal, so I am fighting someone that is the same. You know, with the same size as me, so I don’t think that’s the case. It’s the same thing when they said that women couldn’t be marathon runners because of their periods or whatever, and now they’re saying that we can’t go three-minute rounds because we take too much damage. And then they’re saying they’ve also had tests, you know, and they’re saying they’ve done studies but I haven’t seen a study or a test.” ~Marlen Esparza
DELIVER THE PROOF
The problem that Esparza has is she has never seen any of this supposed evidence. As a pugilist who’s fought for nearly twenty years, Esparza feels that she is in a good position to say that women can handle the extra minute. However, even if there is irrefutable scientific evidence that females can’t physically contend with the extra 6o-seconds, she wants to see it. At this point however, Esparza has only heard mention of these studies being without seeing any hard, actual, factual data.
And unless these supposed finding are legitimized, Marlen Esparza will continue to demand that females are allotted the same time to compete in the professionals as are the men.
“It’s no disrespect to the sanction, I’m not sitting here really trying to piss anyone off. I really, this is my life though, this isn’t for, a lot of them just make the rules, and they’re like deal with it, but this is something that I do every day of my life and I don’t think that its fair that, at least show me the proof. If you’re telling me that I’m going to get hurt more by doing this I want to see the proof and I haven’t yet seen it. So, this is what we need to do for the sport, I feel that we need to be equals and we need to perform as equals and with that becomes the 3-minute rounds.” ~Marlen Esparza
By: Bakari Simpson
