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They found Jim Martin in Bristol, Tennessee. "No way was I going to have a woman, her mother and a Pomeranian in my gym," says the 52-year-old Martin. "I even toyed with the idea of having one of my fighters break one of her ribs just to discourage her. But I liked her moves and the way she listened, and I figured this girl could make me some money. The next thing you know, I fall in love with her." Success did not come as easy for the Martins, who moved to Orlando, Florida, to further their careers. Christy has been fighting for five years now, with 25 knockouts and only two losses in 39 fights. In 1993 the Martins signed with Don King, who promised to make them millions. But while the promoter calls Christy "tenacious and vivacious," he pays her purses that can only be called "bodacious." Tyson received $30 million and Bruno $6 million for their fight, but Martin took home $15,000 for hers.
Says Christy: "I really thought I'd have one pro fight, start teaching phys. ed., maybe raise a family. Now, all of a sudden, little girls are asking me for my autograph and Howard Stern is calling. I may have to put those family plans off for a while. Actually, I'm kind of a softie outside of the ring." She's also something of a disappointment to feminists. She doesn't believe strongly in women's rights or even in female fire fighters: "Hey, if my house is on fire, I want Mike Tyson carrying me out of there, not Christy Martin."
Still, she has floored one very large misconception: the one about women's sports being inferior to men's sports. The Gogarty-Martin bout was superior to most male fights. It was crisp and clean and devoid of the arm holding, head butting and eye thumbing so prevalent in boxing. There's not much to like about the fight game nowadays, no reason for a fan to hold the internal debate between fascination for boxing's white purity and revulsion at the sport's blood-red brutality. But the other night in Vegas, a fighter in pink put those two foes back in the ring.