Nicholas to fight Title bout after five years of inactivity – by Sue TL Fox

When was the last time 43-year old Gina Nicholas fought as a professional?  The date was November 16, 2001. She will re-enter the sport fighting Mary Jo Sanders on January 12th, in a 10-round IBA Americas title bout.  Nicholas is not ranked with WBAN–we do not ranked boxers who have been inactive for that amount of time.

The Facts…

In 2001, Nicholas was in her late thirties, and she fought one of the most fierce boxers at that time–Ann Wolfe.  I was ringside at that fight in Austin, Texas, and the fight ended in the third round—Nicholas lost by TKO.  In Nicholas’ last three pro fights five plus years ago—she lost two out of three of her fights–being stopped twice by Ann Wolfe.

From November 16, 2001, Nicholas become inactive in the sport—not to mention the fact that since the year 2000, she has only fought a total of only 11 rounds.

Nicholas was actually in Iraq during some of the gap of time she had left the sport as a professional boxer.

In March of 2005, WBAN received an email from Nicholas who was in Iraq at the time, giving an update as to what she had been up to:

Nicholas told WBAN the following:  “Well, it’s a long story but the highlights are that I came here (Iraq)  to support the troops because first off, I am ex-military and sitting back home seeing the efforts made me want to help. Then KBR; who is based in Houston, had a job fair so I was off from work that day and decided to give them my resume. After about two weeks, I was offered a job as an Incinerator foreman. I took a leave of absence from my job to do this and I still have my job when I return home. While over here, I was sent to a place called CampFalcon.  My incinerator had yet to be built, that was my job to build and operate the incinerator project at this site. As I was waiting on my materials to be delivered …sometime in June 2004, I began working in the gym. As I was working in the gym where we have weights, cardio equipment and boxing bags…..well, I started to train the soldiers (in the gym), etc. So the military sent a letter of appreciation to the Regional headquarters about the work I was doing here and the regional manager offered me a position at another camp as a Fitness/Boxing Supervisor. So next week, I will be moving to CampAnaconda to start up their boxing and fitness program. This is what I am doing here.”

Questioning this matchup….

I expressed my (negative) opinion about this match up to Jimmy Mallo, of Team Sanders.  In response to my opinion, I received info from Mallo that the fight had been offered to  Dakota Stone, Sumya Anani, Holly Holm, and Valerie Mahfood.

The boxers who were named in his info that he provided, I contacted those boxers by phone and email. This is what they told WBAN….

Dakota Stone: “No. we had some contact from them, but no offer. They didn’t return our attempts to contact them.”

Holly Holm:  (Team response) “No, absolutely not.” Lenny Fresquez stated that they were NOT called about this fight on January 12th. (Another viewpoint about offers of fights from Sanders to Holm)

Sumya Anani: I spoke directly with Anani. She had just returned from Jamaica—she was on a retreat there. Anani said that she has never spoken to anyone directly about fighting Sanders for the January 12th fight. She said that “Barry” was called once, but they never called back. She said, “So in answer to your question, No, I was not offered the fight.”

Valerie Mahfood: I spoke directly with Valerie Mahfood. She stated that she was called about the second week of December, but that her weight was around 172 lbs., and that she could not drop weight to 160 that fast, especially around the holidays for a Jan. 12th fight. Mahfood said that she told them that she would be happy to fight on the next card against Sanders with “proper notice” so she could drop down in weight class. Mahfood said, “Hey I have Pizza Coupons, I need to use up, before I can lose weight!”

In conclusion…

People can “Spin Doctor” this upcoming match as much as they choose to, but the bottom line, is that Gina Nicholas will be re-entering the sport in a rough sense of the word, going from being inactive for five years to fighting for a title fight with a boxer who has been active—in fact Sanders is 22-0.

Throwing in the fact that Nicholas is going into sharks waters when she fights Sanders in her home turf of Michigan.

WBAN can only say…we wish Nicholas the best of luck.  No one can claim that Nicholas is not a “Warrior”.