Lifestyle - Lifestyle Feature

POSTED: Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008

Bout enters history books

Malloy keeps focus during female fight; Poyner not ready to quit boxing

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED NOV. 1, 1993

LYNNWOOD — Boxer Dallas Malloy and trainer James Ferguson shared a private ritual in the weeks leading up to their history-making fight.

"Are you ready for the two-by-four, 20 stories up?" Ferguson would say.

"I'm ready," Malloy would answer.

Saturday night at Edmonds Community College, Malloy showed how ready. The Bellingham 16-year-old pounded out a convincing victory against Heather Poyner of Ferndale in the United States' first sanctioned amateur bout between females.

With the television cameras running, the still photographers' auto drives whirring and a media horde of more than 100 darting through the paying crowd of 1,197, Malloy followed up splendidly on her lawsuit that forced reluctant amateur boxing officials to allow women into the ring.

Poyner, 21, acquitted herself well, too. In fact, despite having crash-trained as a boxer for just three months to Malloy's 15, Poyner took the early lead in the three-round, six-minute bout by peppering Malloy's head with left jabs.

But as had been seemingly scripted from the start, this night of fun and fame was for Malloy and Ferguson.

Just as relentlessly as she was to win women the right to box as amateurs, Malloy quashed Poyner's open-ing-minute point-producing. Malloy, who had Poyner beat in strength as well as preparation, suddenly began to tattoo the former Meridian High School cheerleader's headgear with a constant combination of punches.

Midway through the second round, Poyner was rocked back on her heels by a Malloy right hook. Moments later, a Malloy right uppercut caused the referee to step in and assess Poyner's alertness by giving her a standing eight-count.

From that point on, Malloy dominated. She didn't record a knockdown, but it was no surprise afterward when the five judges awarded her a unanimous victory.

* * *

"It's a story I heard from some old football coach," Ferguson said of his and Malloy's two-by-four routine. "If you take a two-by-four and lay it on the ground, anybody can walk it easy in no time.

"But take that same two-by-four and same person who walks it when it's laying on the ground, and put it between two buildings 20 stories off the ground. Now that's a different story.

"All of a sudden that person has a lot more on his mind than just walking the two-by-four."

Ferguson and Malloy saw weeks ago how high their two-by-four would be on Saturday. The historical fight's hype, like constant, growing gusts of wind, was becoming unnerving.

Telephone calls were arriving from around the world. An NBC-TV "Dateline" crew, complete with ever-present camera and microphone boom, was growing into a second family. Malloy's Seattle-based attorney, Suzanne Thomas, was negotiating with a Los Angeles agency to represent Malloy on several movie and book offers.

Little wonder then that Malloy repeatedly used the word "focus" in her post-fight comments. She had first shown up at Ferguson's 12th Street Gym in Fairhaven to box, and boxing was No. 1 in her mind in the Seaview Gymnasium on Saturday.

"I was really prepared for it and really kept my focus," Malloy said. "Nothing really surprised me."

* * *

Malloy's focus was especially noticeable in her dressing room before the fight. "Dateline," which is sched-uled to air the story at 10 p.m. Tuesday, was given access, as was a photographer from Sports Illustrated and a photographer and reporter from The Bellingham Herald.

As the cameras clicked — often just inches away as Ferguson wrapped and taped Malloy's hands – and numerous security personnel scrambled in and out of the tight, narrow room, Malloy was calm. Calmer even than Ferguson, 50, whose emotions ranged from joyful tears while instructing his prize pupil, to panic-induced curses was scrambling to find a tape bag that had been misplaced.

"She's fine; I'm the one who's a wreck," said Ferguson, motioning to Malloy with one hand and fishing in his equipment bag with the other for a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. He had taken Malloy to watch the moving sports movie "Rudy" on Friday night, and perhaps he was suffering from inspiration overdose.

Malloy's calm, calculated attention to detail came into play when she entered the gym. Her and Poyner's fight was the first after intermission on a 12-bout card, and Malloy had selected the music to be played to signal the end of the break.

After Poyner arrived in black and covered by a white robe, Malloy made everyone wait five minutes for her entrance. Finally, after several ear-shattering minutes of the pounding song "We Will Rock You," she entered the ring with an American flag draped over her.

With the crowd chanting wildly and the fight about to begin, Malloy even had the presence to correct the ring announcer when he introduced her as a Bremerton resident. It was the only thing that went wrong for her the rest of the night.

"It was an almost indescribable moment," Malloy said of her much-anticipated arrival in the ring. "I just waited a long time for this. Everything went just like I expected."

* * *

Seated in a Lynnwood Chinese Restaurant with about 30 of the family members and friends who sat at ringside wearing black "Poyner Power" T-shirts," Poyner patted a bruise developing under her chin. "I think it was that uppercut," she said of Malloy's telling second-round blow three hours earlier.

But Poyner said her real pain was on the inside, not the outside,

"I could have beat her, but I stopped doing what I was doing in the first round," she said. "I stopped throw-ing punches, and she was right there for me to hit. I stopped moving, too. I just stood in front of her with my gloves in front of my face and ate everything she threw at me."

Although Poyner has three years of martial arts training, it was obvious her short introduction to boxing technique put her at a disadvantage. Once Malloy started pressuring her, she didn't adjust.

"I can't even remember the third round," Poyner said. "That's how fast everything was happening out there for me by then. If I had a few more months of training, I think I would have been a lot different."

Poyner knew she was selected as Malloy's first opponent because Ferguson believed there was a great chance Malloy would win.

Ferguson turned down the original prospective foe, a 30-year-old Bremerton women with several years of competitive kick-boxing experience, because that woman had such an edge in maturity. That knowledge, as well as her own competitive nature and the growing media attention awarded Malloy, spurred Poyner.

"It got out of hand, and that pumped me up even more," Poyner said. "I mean, they ended up making such a big deal out of this, and I really don't know why. Women have been boxing and kick-boxing for years."

* * *

But this was the first boxing match between females sanctioned by USA Boxing, the sport's ruling amateur body in the United States. And its significance was reflected by the fact that two other females, 13-year-old Connie Fisher of Spokane and 15-year-old Jenny Scarmizzosa of Wenatchee, also fought Saturday.

Both credited the publicity from Malloy's court battle with drawing them into the ring.

Malloy's goal of boxing in the Olympics might still be a longshot. But what she did to get into the ring, and what she and Poyner did in front of the nation in the ring, will no doubt help interest grow in women's boxing.

Ferguson is lining up a match for Malloy in Regina, Sask., this winter, and he and Malloy plan on traveling and boxing as much as possible. There's also the chance Malloy could compete this spring in the Seattle Golden Gloves, a tournament that Saturday night's card promoter hopes to resume after a five-year absence.

As for Poyner, the word "rematch" was on her mind if not her lips late Saturday. She didn't sound like someone who was satisfied to make history and walk away.

"I put in a lot of work in that three months," she said. "It would be hard to see it all end now. I think it would be neat to see what more training would do for me.

"I really think I can beat Dallas."

She knows where to find her, too. Twenty stories up, on a two-by-four.