Christy Martin pulled down her sock to display a long, nasty scar on her left calf.
“I was laying on the floor and this part of my leg laid on the floor,” she said.
Martin was re-living the horrifying Nov. 23 night when, she alleges, her husband James Martin shot and stabbed her several times in their Florida home and left her for dead.
It apparently started when her husband, with whom she had been living “separate lives” in the same home, believed she was going to leave him altogether for a woman she has been with for some time. Martin had been gone several days prior to the attack, according to one report.
As she drove home ahead of the assault, which will result in her husband going to trial for attempted murder Oct. 3, Martin said she knew something bad might happen because he had for the past 20 years been threatening to kill her if she ever left him.
“I pulled over before I pulled into my driveway and called a really good friend of mine and told her goodbye,” said Martin, who next Saturday will be back in the ring for the first time in 21 months when she takes on Dakota Stone at Staples Center on the undercard of the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.-Sebastian Zbik middleweight world title fight. “Of course, everybody was, `Don’t go home, don’t go home.’
“But I felt I had to live through the ordeal that was coming in order to ever gain my freedom and by the grace of God I was able to live through being stabbed numerous times and being Advertisement
shot.”
Martin, one of the top female fighters in history, almost didn’t live through it. “The bullet went about four inches from my heart,” she said. “The knife wounds punctured my lung.”
Martin was stabbed three times, twice in the upper body and once in the leg.
The adrenaline seemed to be flowing through Martin as she recalled the hair-raising episode.
“After the attack, he thought I was dead so he went and took a shower,” Martin said Wednesday at Fortune Boxing Gym. “I just had prayed really hard and it was like immediately I heard the water turn on in the shower and I knew that was my only opportunity.”
She doesn’t know how but, “I actually got up, my calf muscle was almost cut completely from my leg.”
She grabbed a set of car keys and went outside, but she grabbed the wrong set.
She decided to flag down a motorist. The first one went by, but she said she wasn’t about to let the next one do likewise. She laughed slightly when she said she practically carjacked the next guy.
“I jumped in his back seat and I say, `Look, I’ve been shot and stabbed, please don’t let me die,”‘ Martin said. “And I just begged him, you know, for this little short 3- or 4-minute ride to the hospital. You know, `Please don’t let me die, please don’t let me die.’ And then I told him, `Look, dude, I’m sorry, I’m bleeding all over your back seat.”‘
Martin said it took doctors at one hospital 2
Martin, 42, said she still was living with her husband, who was 66 at the time, “because financially he had broke me” and because he also is her longtime trainer and they had talked about making one last run in boxing. She is 49-5-3 with 31 knockouts.
“Basically, this is what I do,” she said. “This is what I love, being in a boxing ring. And I’ve been given a wonderful opportunity. Not just an opportunity for a second chance on life, it’s a second chance on my boxing career.”
Martin said she expects to be better than ever. That’s doubtful. But for someone who turned pro nearly 22 years ago, she needs the ring to help her forget about that frightful night.
“Even before the attack happened, I was kind of starting to think about getting back in the ring and had a few promoters reaching out to me for some overseas fights,” she said. “But, really, boxing has been the greatest therapy that I could have ever asked for … because without boxing I would just be out there lost without any real sense of direction.”
Promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank Inc., is only too happy to provide Martin this therapy.
“She is a very courageous woman and I admire that,” he said. “She was the woman who established women’s boxing.”
Martin said she is hopeful a good showing next Saturday will convince Top Rank to use her on a big show tentatively scheduled for Oct. 1. That’s two days before James Martin’s trial begins.
“It’s going to work out,” she said of the timing, “just perfect.” ———
De La Hoya apologizes to Arum, Pacquiao
Step 8 of the 12-step program originally established by Alcoholics Anonymous requires one to make a list of all persons he or she has harmed and become willing to make amends. Step 9 says to make direct amends, except when doing so would injure the alcoholic or others.
Oscar De La Hoya’s reason for being in a California rehabilitation clinic is listed as substance abuse – meaning alcohol and/or drugs – but he seems to be following the 12-step program based on a tweet he doled out to rival promoter Bob Arum and Manny Pacquiao this week.
De La Hoya and Arum have been in an ongoing feud for years, complete with nasty insults. De La Hoya is one of those being sued by Pacquiao for his intimation that Pacquiao uses performance-enhancing drugs.
“Dear Bob Arum,” the tweet began. “First I would like to humbly apologize for any pain I have caused to you and or your family. I also want to apologize to Manny Pacquiao for any wrongdoing on my part. You are a great champion. I have realized that by accepting my mistakes everyone around me will hopefully forgive me.
“With great humility I ask we work together for the good of the sport we dearly love. It is not fair to the fans and to the fighters.
“So today let’s move forward and put on the best fights possible and show the world what we are capable of doing. Thank you Bob.”
Arum was asked Friday what he thinks of De La Hoya’s apologies.
“I accept them for what they are,” Arum said via telephone. “I believe it is a sincere apology, which I accept. And I’m grateful that he did it. But other than that, I know what you know.”
This appears to be another step in the direction of Arum’s Top Rank Inc. and De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions again doing business. Arum had said the only way that would happen was if De La Hoya apologized for his part in allegedly defaming Pacquiao, who never has tested positive for PEDs.
The last time the giants did business together was the Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton fight two years ago this month.
Last week the sides came to a confidential agreement that would allow for Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez III in November. Golden Boy had the right to match any offer coming to Marquez, but that was avoided during a meeting between Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer and Arum, who Friday said Pacquiao figures to sign his part of the contract next week.
Etc.
The annual Memorial Day weekend Rumble in Venice amateur card is on tap Sunday at the basketball courts section of Venice Beach. Boxing clubs from California and Nevada will be represented, along with teams from UCLA and USC. Approximately 25 bouts are scheduled and there is no charge for admission. First bell is slated for 12:30p.m. … Heavyweight Michael Grant has let it be known he is a free agent and is seeking a fight with the best. “Since my knockout of Tye Fields in March, we are having difficulty finding a high-ranking heavyweight willing to fight me,” he said in a statement. “I am ready to step up to the highest level available and will fight any of the top heavyweights willing to get in the ring with me.” Grant is 47-4 with 35 knockouts. Every time he has stepped up to world class, he has lost – to Lennox Lewis (KO 2), Jameel McCline (TKO 1), Dominick Guinn (TKO 7) and Tomasz Adamek (decision). He did knock out Fields in three. But Fields, although he’s 6 feet 8, is not that good, his own 47-4 record notwithstanding. … Miguel Angel “Mikey” Garcia (25-0, 21 KOs), a fast-rising featherweight from Oxnard, will take on Miguel Beltran Jr. (24-1, 17 KOs) of Mexico next Saturday underneath the middleweight world title fight between Sebastian Zbik and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., at Staples Center (on HBO). … Also next Saturday, Carl Froch (27-1, 20 KOs) of England will defend his super middleweight world title when fights Glen Johnson (51-14-2, 35 KOs) of Miami in Showtime’s Super Six semifinals at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.
