In with fighting chance
19 August 2008
A waitress sporting a black eye might be taken as advice not to quibble over the bill.
When Noosa’s Katrina Ripley isn’t waiting tables in Noosa, she can be found training alongside the likes of Australian super-middleweight champion Israel Kani, as she looks to climb the ladder in women’s boxing.
At 31, Katrina is fresh from her first win as a professional against Ipswich fighter Nikki Sykes, and despite breaking Sykes nose when the two entered the ring as amateurs, she won the Queensland junior light weight bout by a slender points’ margin.
But it was the appearance of boxing trainer Bobby Wilson at a fitness class about two-and-a-half years ago that started her boxing journey.
“I got into it for no specific reason, there was a fitness class on and one day Bobby Wilson took the class and I was in hook, line and sinker,” she said.
“I just wanted to learn and started doing some personal training with Bobby.”
Continuing her tuition under Wilson, Katrina turned to her mentor and told him she was “quite serious about this”. Yet Wilson, the consummate professional, didn’t let her in the ring until she had the right skills in her arsenal.
It was at the bottom of the stairs for a Queensland amateur title fight the reality dawned.
“That’s when it clicked and I thought, ‘I’m here’,” she said.
“You’re getting into the ring on your own.”
She lost that fight, but Katrina took it on the chin, so to speak.
“It helped me focus more and taught me a lot about myself,” she said. “It’s more than having a hook or right cross, it’s what you do with it in the ring.”
By design or by default, she’s forging a path for other women to follow. Her next goal is to head overseas to ply her trade against the world’s best female fighters.
“Boxing is quite small for females in Australia.”
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