Amanda Serrano: A champion’s fight for respect

Amanda Serrano may be a five-division world champion, but as a woman in boxing, she faces a constant uphill battle for recognition. Now she’s considering a move into a different ring.

The plight of boxer Amanda Serrano is perhaps best explained by a comparison to a male counterpart.

On Saturday night, Floyd Mayweather, a five-division world champion, will step into the ring with UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor in a lucrative match that is expected to earn him a nine-figure payday.

Serrano is also a five-division world champion, one who is expected to chase her record sixth world championship this fall. In January, she pulled in $17,500 for a win over Yazmin Rivas that was televised on Showtime Extreme.

Now if you said the two were apples and oranges, that wouldn’t be inaccurate. But should such a disparity—both financially and in terms of recognition—be an accepted practice?

“It’s sad because if I was a man, I wouldn’t be stuck in Bushwick,” Brooklyn’s Serrano said. “I would have been in Vegas in a mansion and on the undercard of Mayweather-McGregor.”

“It’s sad because if I was a man, I wouldn’t be stuck in Bushwick,” Brooklyn’s Serrano said. “I would have been in Vegas in a mansion and on the undercard of Mayweather-McGregor.”

She laughs, but for the 28-year-old, who is the complete package when it comes to fighting skill, knockout power, and marketability, the 10 years she’s spent compiling a 33-1-1 record and world championships in five weight classes have been no laughing matter. It’s forced her to seek other opportunities on the other side of the combat sports street: mixed martial arts.

“Being a five-division world champion and (manager / trainer) Jordan (Maldonado) still having to fight to get me good paydays, it was an eye-opening situation,” Serrano said. “What now? Where’s the money, the exposure, all the good stuff that’s supposed to come when you’re at the top of the game? I’m still struggling, still fighting outside of the ring. That’s when we realized maybe I have to do what Holly Holm did and what these other girls are doing to get something back.”

Holm, a three-division world champion who earned a spot in the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, was relatively unknown outside of hardcore fight fans and her hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. So in 2013, she made the move to MMA full-time (she had two previous bouts in 2011), and by the end of 2015 she was the UFC women’s bantamweight champion after knocking out Ronda Rousey. Now she was making the rounds on national talk shows and reaping the benefits of her years of hard work.

That made an impression on Serrano, who met Holm on the set of the movie Fight Valley.

“Holly told me it was the best thing she ever did,” Serrano recalled. “She’s upset that she didn’t do it sooner. That stood in the back in my head.”

Serrano also made another friend on the set in the fighter that dethroned Holm, Miesha Tate.

Tate was one of the rare women who was in the sport during its lean years and also there when it became a major factor in MMA reaching its current heights. When she retired last November, she did it as a former world champion and a legit superstar who was able to parlay her fame into broadcasting work for FS1. Now, she is involved in the management end of the sport through her firm with Reynolds Management, Ao8 (Art of Eight).

Currently in advanced talks to sign on as a co-manager for Serrano, Tate provides a unique perspective when it comes to the New Yorker’s career.

“My heart sinks a little because I feel for her,” she said. “I know exactly where she’s at, and having been in that same spot coming up through MMA, I feel like we definitely can draw a comparison. I know the struggle, I know how difficult and frustrating it can be. You feel like you’re just hitting this glass ceiling and saying, ‘I can see so much further and I want to get there,’ but you’re stuck. My goal for her is to shatter that and if we go through the avenue of mixed martial arts to do that for her, then so be it. I think that women’s boxing has the potential to really take off, but unfortunately it’s not there yet.”

The reasons for this could go on for days, but there are a couple major points to chew on.

NEW YORK, NY – JANUARY 14: Amanda Serrano punches Yazmin Rivas during their Junior Featherweight bout at the Barclays Center on January 14, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

First, the networks have not gotten behind the sport—at least not consistently. Showtime has been the only major player to feature fighters like Serrano and two-time Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields, and they appear to be making a commitment to the ladies. ESPN has a deal with Top Rank, which recently signed 2016 Olympian Mikaela Mayer, so that’s another positive sign, and another promoter airing fights on ESPN—Golden Boy Promotions—has 2012 Olympian Marlen Esparza under contract.

Second, the major promoters in the game have been slow to jump on board, despite seeing that women in MMA have proven to be box office gold. There are the outliers mentioned above, and Serrano’s promoter, Lou DiBella, has long been a supporter of the sport that has gotten significant TV spots for the female members of his roster—Serrano, Heather Hardy, and Shelly Vincent.

That’s good news, but a handful of fighters will not make an impact on their own. And as Maldonado points out, the fighters are often the problem.

“In boxing, you choose and pick your opponents,” he said. “MMA doesn’t give you that. In MMA, people are real fighters. No one is after protecting records. Over here [in boxing], all they want to do is protect their record, nobody wants to take a loss. In boxing, one loss takes you out of the equation. In MMA, it does not matter. You can have two or three losses and still be the top dog, and it’s great. Plus, MMA promotes their shows. We’re in a tug of war with MMA and boxing, and MMA is winning.”

So while Serrano and her team are in negotiations to face 140-pound champion Ana Laura Esteche later this year, the training these days is all about MMA.

“All I’m training now is takedown defense,” she says with a laugh. “My coach is teaching me how to defend the takedown, how to sprawl, and if I was to get taken down, how to quickly get out of it. It’s coming along well and I’m excited. I’m learning new stuff and it’s like I’m in school again. I’m asking questions and it sparked something in me. I can’t wait to see what the future brings.”

Neither can Tate, who will be meeting with Serrano in Las Vegas next month.

“I’m bringing her out in mid-September, and I’m gonna work with her myself,” Tate said. “Part of what I would be doing is obviously athlete development. The other part would be fight negotiations and trying to guide her through her career. She’s interested in transitioning into mixed martial arts, so I feel like I have value to her there, and if she wants to make that transition, then I will look to make it as successful as possible.”

All the pieces of the puzzle are there for Serrano to be a superstar in MMA. She is a rarity in boxing as a legitimate knockout artist, and with four-ounce gloves in MMA, she will be even more scary. She is picking up the other aspects of the sport, and having Tate in her corner will only speed up that process. Outside the ring, she’s charismatic, marketable, and someone who doesn’t own a cellphone (and never has), what more do you need in terms of talking points for a great story?

This, and Tate agrees, is where boxing drops the ball, as no one is truly telling the stories of female boxers.

By allowing our stories to be told, the UFC did a spectacular job, and that allowed people to get interested in who we were as fighters. We have great stories, and I think Amanda has a fascinating story, but it’s all about the marketing and who will put money behind what so that those stories can be told.”

“When the UFC decided to give us our opportunity, they gave us a really fair shake by having us headline the biggest events of the year and putting a lot behind promoting women’s mixed martial arts,” Tate said. “It really made a big difference. By allowing our stories to be told, the UFC did a spectacular job, and that allowed people to get interested in who we were as fighters. We have great stories, and I think Amanda has a fascinating story, but it’s all about the marketing and who will put money behind what so that those stories can be told.”

So does Tate think Serrano can make that jump and get what she deserves?

“Typically, I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge advocate for boxers making the transition to mixed martial arts because there’s so much ground to be covered,” Tate said. “I think boxing is, at most, 25 percent of what it takes to be a well-rounded mixed martial artist. It’s a very difficult transition for boxers. There’s not only so much that they have to learn that’s new, but also things that they have to change about what they’ve been doing.”

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“With that being said, I think that Amanda is the exception to that. Her work ethic is unmatched, her determination is unmatched, and her drive to do this is incredible. If she wants it bad enough and we put her in touch with the right people, I think that she can make a successful transition to mixed martial arts, and by signing with me, that’s what I want to make happen.”