![]() I realised that I was put here to help those who can’t help themselves. “I told myself that I was born for something more than just kicking somebody’s ass. I literally picked myself off the floor and found my new purpose in life. So many times I thought about taking my own life too,” Mia tells us, “but over time I was able to draw on the strength, both mentally and physically, that I had as a fighter. “At first I had absolutely no idea how I was going to live. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 18 and was in a health facility when he died. His short life had been a constant battle with mental illness. Her only son, Julian, took his own life at the age of just 24, in November 2014. She is using her kick ass powers to drive change in how we treat and view people with mental health issues. Her life now has a higher purpose, born out of unimaginable grief and despair. I became good friends with Tommy.” Fine company to be keeping, if we do say so ourselves.īut that was then, this is now. “I met Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns when Oscar fought Felix Trinidad. “Oscar’s fights and the big fights with Chavez at Caesars Palace, those were some of my favourite moments in boxing,” she recalls. There were legendary nights in Las Vegas, when Mia played warm-up for some of the biggest names in the fight game, including Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya. You just can’t get out,” she laughs, while talking to The Sportsman from her home in L.A. ![]() Because that’s how she sees it, Mia was addicted to boxing. The adrenaline, the adulation, the addiction. On the days when her hips don’t hurt so much, following three replacements, Mia still misses it. The clue was in the nickname handed down after her first professional fight, ‘The Knockout’. WIth more than 60 professional bouts over two decades, the five-time world champion was the actual face of women’s boxing in America at the height of her career.įirst signed by the legendary Don King, and then by his great rival Bob Arum, she met some of the sport’s finest female boxers, sharing the ring with Christy Martin, Holly Holm and Cecilia Breakhus. It was, in her own words, “to kick somebody’s ass”. ![]()
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