Boxing Has This Go-Getter Seeing Stars

Para Draine just turned 25 and doesn’t see herself boxing beyond the age of 30.

“I think I’ll make it big before then anyway,” she said. “So there.”

The laugh that followed wasn’t meant to let you know she was kidding, because she wasn’t.

So how was it meant?

Maybe she’d subconsciously taken a step back from her bold prediction and considered the stretch - the surface lunacy of someone who’s never fought professionally outside the friendly confines of Worley, Idaho, actually “making it big.” Maybe the best way to confront and conquer such a stretch is by laughing it down to size.

Or maybe she was reminding herself of the absurdity of applying any absolutes to boxing, her chosen profession for the past nine months. In that short time, she’s come to learn that everything - rankings, purses, matches, decisions - seems to be open to negotiation.

“Nothing in boxing is ever a done deal,” she cautioned.

Not until one of the fighters is being peeled off the canvas, anyway.

So while her suggestion that her scheduled fight on Thursday’s card at Coeur d’Alene Tribal Bingo/Casino may be her last locally for a spell is sincere and logical, deep down she understands that a boxer must take matches where she can get them - even if that means going back to Worley.

It’s boxing. Stuff happens. As of late Tuesday evening, Draine still didn’t know who her Thursday opponent would be.

“It’s all about exposure,” said Draine. “Nobody knew who I was until I got a title fight and nobody’s going to know me until I fight in bigger cities and on bigger cards. I’m a professional fighter and you have to travel to have a successful career.”

Women’s boxing is still enough of a novelty that “career” is a relative term. It doesn’t pay the bills yet; between fights, Draine checks I.D.s and backs up the bouncer at a Spokane nightclub.

But in some respects, she’s been preparing for this her whole life.

At Rogers High School, she ran No. 3 on a state championship cross country team. But her heart was always in the gym with her brothers and assorted cousins.

“When I was 8 years old, I went to the gym with my brother,” she recalled, “but they told me I couldn’t box and I went home crying. And even when they wouldn’t let me, I still hung around there all day.”

Her fighting side, then, was relegated to the basement, where she and a female cousin would occasionally square off “in some pretty brutal fights.” But in 1993, a woman named Dallas Malloy successfully sued for the right to get hit in the face and hit back. The sport of boxing and the life of Para Draine have never been quite the same since.

The propriety of women in the ring is still a hot button in some circles - and, no, perhaps this wasn’t what the folks who gave you Title IX had in mind.

Tough. It’s a perfect fit for Draine, who nonetheless balks when asked if boxing was a serious pursuit when she first put on the gloves.

“I don’t know if it’s really serious to me now,” she said. “I mean, I take it seriously, but if I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t do it.

“The best part of it is, I’m really good at it.”

And that’s why the lady is, well, a contender.

She could have been a champ, but last November she dropped a 10-round split decision to Teresa Arnold in Worley in what was billed as a fight for the IBA World Bantamweight title.

“Since then, I’ve been real edgy,” Draine said. “I really want to fight again. I’m not fighting for my honor, just for myself - just to show that I’m way better than what I showed that night.”

The circumstances of that title fight still gnaw at her. Unbeaten in five pro fights, Draine was facing a boxer with three times as much experience. She’d never fought more than four rounds, and was giving up 7 pounds to her rival - a ton at the low end of the scale.

“I weighed in at 112 and I ate all day long to get there,” she said. “She weighed in at 119 and she was probably dried out.

“I’ve never gone into a fight thinking I could lose and I still think I could have won on my talent alone. But I was so nervous and so whacked out about going 10 rounds and about the weight that I’m not sure I gave myself a chance.”

That didn’t stop her from giving Arnold - and the Worley crowd - a fight.

“I think they’re more into the women’s fights sometimes,” Draine said. “They’re all action - I mean, I’m in there for business. I’ve seen too many boring male fights.”

And more often than not, old friends from high school make the trip to see her in action - sparing her the trouble of explaining just what it is she’s up to these days.

“But you know, even before it was legal, I used to talk about boxing all the time,” she said, “just because I was around it so much. The ones who know me, I don’t think they’re surprised.”

And won’t be if she makes it big - before or after she’s 30.

You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review