<<<Back to Table of Contents
Even if you’re not a fan
of professional boxing, odds are excellent that you’re able to name at least one world champion. Muhammad “The Greatest” Ali, Ray “Sugar Ray” Leonard, and Oscar “Golden Boy” de la Hoya all became household names by slugging their way to numerous world championship titles. Many personal traits contributed to these men becoming legends – Ali’s braggadocio, Leonard’s speed and De la Hoya’s good looks and charisma – but if boxing greatness were determined solely by the number of titles won, there’s one boxer whose name would be as familiar to you as those of her famous male counterparts. Odds are rather slim, however, that you’ve ever even heard of Ann “Brown Sugar” Wolfe.
Her obscurity to those not immersed in the sport is perhaps due in part to the history of women’s boxing itself. The sport isn’t as well promoted as the men’s version, nor does it have as lengthy a record. Until 1993 – a mere 17 years ago – USA Boxing, the national governing body of amateur boxing, neither recognized female boxers nor included them in its programs. In 1997, USA Boxing held the first-ever Women’s National Championships.
If not for the many women before her who fought for the right to wear gloves, Wolfe might never have had the opportunity to get in the ring, let alone make her mark as the greatest professional female boxer of them all. She has held a total of eight world titles in four different weight classes. That’s more world titles than any boxer – male or female – has ever held in the history of the sport. Compare Wolfe’s record to those of some male champs: De la Hoya won six world titles; Leonard, five; and Ali, with whom Wolfe shares a Jan. 17 birth date, three.
Although history certainly contributed to Wolfe boxing in the shadow of male fighters, there are no longer reasons for her to remain there. Women’s boxing is here to stay, and although Wolfe no longer competes, she is ready to fight for the recognition she deserves. “It’s time that Austin knows my name,” Wolfe says.
Life on the Ropes
Wolfe grew up in Oberlin, LA, a small town about 60 miles east of Lake Charles. The third of six children, she was raised in poverty by a devout mother, and abused by an alcoholic father. “We never had running water, but we got lots of love from our mother. I was happy,” remembers Wolfe. When her mother, Theresa, died of uterine cancer at age 43, life hit unprecedented lows for Wolfe. “My mother was the glue to my world. When she died, it was like somebody unplugged a screw in the top of my head and all the life drained out of me. I was a body with no soul,” says Wolfe. There was, sadly, more despair to come. Eleven months after her mother’s death, Wolfe’s father was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong; at age 18, Wolfe was left without any parental guidance at all. With only a 6th grade education, she chose to make her living by following in her father’s footsteps. She was arrested for drug trafficking and possession in 1990 and spent 18 months in a Florida prison.
Wolfe took it on the chin again in 1994 when her oldest brother, Rickey, was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer during an attempted robbery in Austin. By then, Wolfe had two children, Jennifer and Latania. She packed up her young family and came to the city to seek answers about her brother’s death; without a job, without any direction, without so much as one piece of personal identification, she wound up homeless on the streets with her daughters, then aged two and four, and faced a harsher existence than she had ever before known.
Wolfe slept under bridges with her daughters, spending nights in a motel only when odd jobs provided her with enough cash to do so. Wolfe says that during this time, everything her mother had taught her began to drift away. “I was very rugged, really rough around the edges,” Wolfe recalls. “I was just blunt. I had no manners. I had been through seven years of hell. I went from being a meek and humble individual to being a cruel animal.”
The future seemed impossibly bleak. One day, fate presented Wolfe with a way out. She was staying out of the cold with her kids in the waiting room at Brackenridge Hospital when she happened to see a cable broadcast of female boxers. “I asked the lady sitting next to me, ‘Do you think they’re getting paid?’ She said, ‘If it’s on TV, they’re getting paid.’ I asked her if a person would need a degree to do that. She said, ‘I don’t think you do, because it’s just fighting,’ Wolfe recalls. It was then that Wolfe decided boxing, a sport Ali once referred to as “the fastest way for a black person to make it in this country,” would be her way off the street.
Who’s Afraid of Big Ann Wolfe?
Wolfe was naive about how the boxing world worked, but pushed forward with dogged determination. She went to a gym in East Austin where Don “Pops” Billingsley was training boxers. Wolfe was the first woman he’d ever taken on. “Pops was the father figure I had never had,” says Wolfe. Linda Robinson, who saw Wolfe sparring, introduced her to her husband Brian Pardo, a businessman from Waco who backed Wolfe financially. “Brian told me, ‘You will beat the best. I’ll put in the money, Pops will put in the knowledge, and you will put in the work.”
After three amateur bouts, Wolfe turned pro. Her proudest moment in the ring came at the end of her bout with Vonda Ward in May 2004 to take the IBA Light Heavyweight world title. That victory stands out for Wolfe not because she leveled her opponent in just 68 seconds with an overhand right, not because TV commentators called it “the greatest knockout in women’s boxing history,” and not because Ward stood nine inches taller than Wolfe. “That win was the best for me because of the look on Brian’s and Pops’ faces,” says Wolfe. The only disappointing result of Wolfe’s victory was that Laila Ali, Muhammad’s daughter, never kept her promise to face the winner.
After two more matches, Wolfe retired. During her eight-year career, she boxed 115 rounds, finishing with a record of 24-1, 16 of them by knockout. Her success in the ring wasn’t reflected in earnings. Her total take for all her matches was less than $100,000, a pitiful fraction of what male champions earned.
Wolfe, who turns 39 this month, is now a personal fitness trainer and boxing coach. “Pops” Billingsley, now 72, still works with her, now as her assistant, and Brian Pardo continues to provide Wolfe with a monthly stipend. She is happily settled into a relationship with her partner of five years, Hannah, with whom she has an 18-month-old son, Zion; her daughter Jennifer, 18, whom Wolfe also trains, is a strong contender for a place with the 2012 Olympics team. Latania, 16, is showing strength in both sports and academics. From a personal standpoint, things are going well for Wolfe.
Business, on the other hand, continues to provide challenges. Three months after moving her gym from East Austin to a business park just over the Travis County line, there’s still no storefront sign outside. It just isn’t within the gym’s shoestring budget to get one.
It’s a Tuesday night; music blasts through the cinder blocks of the unmarked building into the parking lot. The songs don’t seem to belong together, and don’t follow any apparent logic: zydeco follows gospel, B. B. King tunes roll into Michael Jackson hits. Inside the gym, with the lights down low – one of Wolfe’s money-saving strategies – women battling middle-age spread shuffle to the blaring music while pre-teen boys and lean-looking young men shadowbox. Wolfe, tall and muscular, prowls around the gym; she takes a few light jabs at a young boxer, dances a few steps with a woman. During the class, she doesn’t say anything – she’d never be heard over the music even if she did. She leads by example, and commands attention effortlessly through her intensity, focus and magnetism. All eyes are on the champ, and the eclectic group of students follows her every move, not necessarily with precise mimicry, but definitely with utter devotion.
Like the odd blend of music and the diverse assortment of people in her gym, Wolfe defies explanation or categorization. She’s a gentle and nurturing mother, but has delivered some of her sport’s fiercest punches. She still can’t read or write very well, but so many intelligent thoughts flood her mind that she can barely finish one sentence before racing on to the next. She’s soft-spoken and polite, but outspoken and fierce about her beliefs.
She’s also energetic and totally committed to her work at the gym. At 5 p.m., one hour before class was scheduled to start, Wolfe entered the building, covered in dirt after a day of hard labor with a cell phone tower installation company. It’s a job she wishes she didn’t have to do, but she’s taken it on just to cover her rent at the gym. She punched out after a 10-hour shift, took a quick shower, and then jumped into the ring, ready to lead an hour-long aerobics class. While most of the participants took an occasional break during that hour, Wolfe remained in constant motion.
School of Hard Knocks
The money Wolfe collects from her aerobics students allows her to focus on her real passion: showing the ropes to at-risk youths. Many of her young boxing hopefuls have grown up in hard circumstances, and lack the financial means to pay for training. Wolfe’s hard-gained knowledge of where they come from affords them a special bond. “I understand what can happen to a child who is left with nothing at all,” says Wolfe. The young men and women come to the gym hoping to learn how to become champions, but the wily Wolfe teaches her students more than just how to throw and receive punches. While she has them in her clutches, she tosses in a few life lessons as well.
“This gym is just a front for me to get these kids in here and change them,” says Wolfe, half-joking for only a moment. “I teach these kids how to say ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, sir.’ Somebody needs to teach these kids how to be respectful.”
When Wolfe refers to her students as her “thugs,” she does so with a touch of sarcasm, knowing exactly how most Austinites perceive kids from the city’s east side. Such opinions, unfortunately, might not be entirely unfounded. Some of Wolfe’s charges have already been in serious trouble with the law. Her prize pupil, undefeated light middleweight James Kirkland, was sentenced to 2½ years in prison for his part in an armed robbery. He was released after serving six months; Wolfe, Kirkland’s trainer since 2001, was optimistic about his chances to take the world junior middleweight belt, a win that would have made Wolfe the first female trainer to coach a fighter to a world title. Those dreams were put on hold when Kirkland was arrested for possession of a firearm in April 2009, two weeks before his title match. He’s back in jail, serving a two-year sentence.
Like an inflatable punching clown that bounces back when it has been knocked down, Wolfe refuses to be defeated by this minor roadblock, taking a philosophical attitude to this obstacle. “This too shall pass,” says Wolfe. Another trainee, Kurtiss Colvin, recently released after serving 18 months for aggravated assault, is a nationally ranked middleweight. If he can keep his troubles behind him and stay focused on the future, Colvin may be the first to bring Wolfe top honors as a trainer.
To call Wolfe gifted in her sport would undercut the hard work she devoted to learning the skills that landed her on top. Her real innate gift, and perhaps her greatest strength of all, is her ability to bring people from all walks of life together, and to act as a bridge between the haves and the have-nots. It’s a position that Wolfe treasures, and one she sees as key, not only for the growth and personal development of the at-risk youths she trains, but also for the growth of the city of Austin.
“In order to have a nice rose garden, you have to pluck out the weeds. These kids aren’t the weeds; they’re the roses. All their problems are the weeds. They’re surrounded by the weeds of poverty, lack of education, and homelessness,” says Wolfe.
Her greatest hope for the future is to recruit a few more gardeners so that the entire community will work together to make Austin a more beautiful place for all residents, regardless of on which side of I-35 they’ve set down their roots. If Ann Wolfe’s name becomes known for no other reason than making that goal a reality, she will have won her toughest fight of all.
The 10 Count
ANN'S TOP 10 TIPS FOR A PRODUCTIVE,
HEALTHY + FULFILLING 2010
1. Clear your space and heart of negativity. Free yourself of items that you associate with hard times or troubles. If there are people in your life who are not supportive of you or your goals, it’s time to end those relationships.
2. Surround yourself with people who are positive. People who share similar goals can be sources of inspiration. Connect with someone who has already achieved one of your goals so that you can be mentored to success by that person.
3. Tread new territory. Try something you’ve never tried before. Don’t be afraid that you won’t be good at it! Whatever you attempt is one step forward. That’s progress, not failure!
4. Visit your doctor. Just because you look good on the outside doesn’t necessarily mean that you are healthy on the inside. Find out if you have any underlying medical conditions by scheduling a complete physical.
5. Create the body you want. Don’t assume your body was meant to look a certain way just because of genetics. A personal trainer can help you develop a plan to achieve your ideal body.
6. Work hard for what you want. Nothing worth having is going to fall into your lap. Believing you’ll achieve without effort is a waste of wishes!
7. Take baby steps. Set small weekly goals that lead up to your ultimate goal. Achieving small goals along the way will make you more likely to achieve your ultimate goal.
8. Write down your plans and say them out loud. I am a believer in the old saying “Fail to plan, plan to fail!”
9. Reach beyond the familiar. Go outside your comfort zone to a place you’ve never been before. When you better understand how other people live, you’ll have greater compassion for them.
10.Make random acts of kindness a part of your daily life. Do something every day to help somebody for no reason at all.
Transformation Kickoff Event with Ann Wolfe
Start off the New Year feeling fit and healthy! On January 2, 2010, join Ann Wolfe from 4:30 to 7 p.m. at Austin Music Hall (208 Nueces) for a Transformation Kickoff.
You’ll learn Wolfe’s tips on nutrition and fitness and participate in a one-hour aerobics class. Tickets are $22 each or two for $40.
For more info:
512.247.5100
annwolfe.com
annwolfe@ymail.com
MORE INFO
Ann Wolfe Boxing Gym
Cedar Creek, TX 78612
512.740.7821 • AWBF@annwolfe.com
annwolfe.com