Tag Archives: Melinda Cooper

Two great upcoming women’s championship bouts: Santana v. Reile and Velez v. Castillo

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>>>Update>>>

Katy Castillo Wilson defeated Ada Velez to become the IBF Female Super Bantamweight title by majority decision: 97-93, 07-93 and 98-92.

Dahiana Santana defeated Stacey Reile for the IBF Female Featherweight title by majority decision: 98-90, 97-90 and 97-91.

Two great upcoming women’s championship bouts: Santana v. Reile and Velez v. Castillo!

Stacey Reile and Dahiana Santana, March 2011, Credit: Reuters/Juan Carlos Ulate

This will be war!  

We’re talking two huge IBF female championships that will be fought this coming Saturday, March 24th at the Palacio de Deportes in Santo Domingo in the Dominical Republic promoted by none other than Sampson Boxing.

Stacey Reile and Dahiana Santana, March 2011, Photo Credit: Reuters/Juan Carlos Ulate

Current IBF Female Featherweight Title Champion Dahiana Santana (21-6-0, 12-KOs) will be fighting her third rematch with challenger Stacey “Staylo” Reile (10-4-0, 4-KOs) who initially won the title against her in March of 2011 before losing the title to Santana in November 2011.  Their third meeting is much anticipated and should be a tough, tough fight.

Ada Velez, Credit: Chase Von

Fight Card for March 24, Katy Wilson Castillo (r), Photo: Orlando Ramos

The second female championship bout will be for the IBF Super Bantamweight Title pitting the hard hitting champion Ada Velez (20-3-3, 6-KO) against the home town favorite Katy Wilson Castillo (14-1-0, 9-KOs). Velez, best known for her bruising battles against Melinda Cooper.  Velez has also fought and won against Stacey Reile.

For a mash-up preview of Saturday night’s boxing card watch the junior featherweight bout between Ada Velez and Stacey Reile from February 2010 — (along with a Girlboxing shout out to YouTube!).

Women’s Boxing Results: IBF Championships 11/20/11

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Women’s Boxing Results: IBF Championships 11/20/11

Ada Velez retains IBF Super Bantamweight Title, Photo: Chris Cozzone

In a stunning evening of women’s boxing at its best at the Texas Station Casino in Las Vegas, Ada Velez (20-2-3, 6-KO’s) retained her IBF Female Super Bantamweight championship belt in a hard-fought contest against Melinda “La Maravilla” Cooper (21-2, 11-KOs).  The judges scored the bout 98-92, 97-93 , 95-95 giving Velez a majority win. People on the scene found the third judges score surprising as they otherwise had Velez decisively dominating Cooper throughout the bout.

In what was an upset win, Dominican fighter Dahiana Santana (28-6, 12-KOs) soundly defeated former champion Stacey Reile (10-4, 4 KOs) to become the new IBF Female Featherweight Champion.  Both boxers fought a hard tough fight with the final decision scoring noted as 98-90, 97-90, 97-91.

The undercard bout with Las Vegas’ own Tatina “Lil Tyson” Anderson (5-1-1, 4-KOs) was no less exciting with her third round stoppage of  Victoria Cisneros (5-13-2, 1-KO).

Sue Ti Fox of WBAN covered the fight along with photographer Mary Ann Lurie Owen.  I highly recommend checking WBAN for some fabulous photos and cover on the bouts.  The link for the quick results is here.  I’d also recommend checking back later for her longer piece.

Chris Cozzone also covered the fight for Fightnews.com.  His piece is here.

Awesome, stupendous women’s boxing 2morrow (11/20)!

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Awesome, stupendous women’s boxing 2morrow (11/20)!

Talk about a great fight card!

The main event features Melinda “La Maravilla” Cooper vs. Ada Velez II for the IBF Superbantamweight title.

But it doesn’t stop there!

We’re talking a second IBF world title match!   Stacy “Stay-Lo” Reile (10-4, 4-KOs) fighting out of Miami, Florida will be defending her IBF Featherweight belt against the Dominican Republic’s own Dahiana Santana (27-6, 12-KOs).  

Two other women’s bouts will be on the card including a the popular Las Vegas area, fighter TaTina “Lil Tyson” Anderson (4-1-1, 3-KOs) will be fighting the very game Victoria Cisneros (5-12-2, 1-KO) who lost a ten round decision in her last outing against Holly Holm in June..

The other female bout on the undercard will be  the winner of the WBC reality show “Reto de Campeones,” Irma Garcia Nunez against an opponent TBA.

The card is being promoted by Sampson Boxing, LLC — and shows a huge commitment to female athletes at the top of their game.  Pablo Betancourt’s Executive Entertainment, LLC has also worked alongside Sampson Boxing to make this dream card happen at the Texas Station Gambling Hall and Hotel.

A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Las Vegas Rescue Mission in support of battered women.

For ticket and view information please note the following!

Tickets will be available at www.texasstation.com, TEXAS Station Gambling Hall and Hotel: 2101 Texas Star Ln., North Las Vegas.

Doors open at 2:30 pm and the fights will start at 3:00 pm. Ticket prices are: $25.00 for General Admission and $75.00 for Ringside.

The event will be televised LIVE by: MAPI T.V., Supercanal, Dominican View, Tele-El Salvador, TDS, Comcast, Cable-vision, RCN, Time Warner, Verizon and Fios. Viewing countries: The United States (Dallas, Tampa, Baltimore, Washington, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Ft. Wayne, Richmond, Norfolk, Pittsburgh, Providence, Buffalo, Harrisburg and Syracuse), Mexico, the Caribbean, Central, South America and Russia.

Interview with Melinda “La Maravilla” Cooper ahead of Cooper vs. Velez II!

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Interview with Melinda “La Maravilla” Cooper ahead of Cooper vs. Velez II!

Melinda “La Maravilla” Cooper  (21-1, 11-KOs) is hungry — and she wants her IBF Superbantamweight Title back.  She is set to meet Puerto Rican fighter Ada Velez (19-3-3, 6-KOs) in a rematch and in what promises to be a tough, taut battle, La Maravilla and Velez will meet for a ten-round championship fight on Sunday, November 20, 2011 at the Texas Station Gambling House and Hotel in Cooper’s hometown of Las Vegas. Given her popularity, it is expected that the bout will be fought in front of a sell-out crowd — who are equally as hungry to see her back in the ring.

Melinda "La Maravilla" Cooper (r) vs. Ada Velez

La Maravilla, 26 is known as a tough savvy boxer and is considered one of the best fighters in women’s boxing today. Both women met last March in Costa Rica when Velez took the belt by a split decision, 96-94, 96-94, 94-96. That outcome, which many believed was a poor decision at best certainly stunned Cooper and her team, but ever the champion, Cooper is grateful for the rematch and is looking forward to taking the belt back. Neither fighter has been in the ring since their outing in March, but Cooper feels confident that she is ready.

Melinda graciously agreed to take time from her busy training schedule to answer a few emailed questions. This is what she had to say!

How are you feeling about meeting Ada Velez for the IBF Female Super Bantamweight Title?

>>>I feel amazing about the upcoming match between Ada and I. I’ve been training hard and taking Genesis Sports Nutrition to ensure my body is recovering properly. I’m ready; it is going to be a great fight!

Your bout in March resulted in a split decision with two judges scoring it 96-94 for Ada and one judge scoring it 96-94 for you. Did that factor into setting up the rematch?
>>>Undoubtedly!
You had a perfect 21-0 record coming into your match back in March, how has that affected you and your training coming into this bout?
>>>It has made me hungrier!
You are considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, at 26 you are also relatively young given that there are a lot of elite women fighters still in the game well into their 30’s, what’s next for you?
>>>After I win the IBF title and with the support of my sponsors: Silver Nugget, Lucky Club and Opera House, I plan to move down in weight to 118 and fight for a title. I would also like to fight at a couple of different weight classes for world titles.
Most of your bouts have been in the United States — although your three most recent bouts have been out of the country in Costa Rica and Mexico. Do you feel you will increasingly need to fight out of the country?
>>>No I do not feel I will need to fight out of the country to get competitive fights. I believe if promoters put more female bouts on in the U.S. it would reduce the need to fight abroad.
In thinking about women’s boxing in general, what do you project for the sport in the coming years?
>>>I feel the recent inclusion of women’s boxing into the Olympics will only serve to bring more (much deserved) positive attention to the sport from those who are already familiar with it; as well as making it more attractive to mainstream audiences.
Videos!
Melinda Cooper sparring with Laura Serrano prepping for her upcoming fight:

Melinda Cooper boxing highlights video

Women’s Boxing from around the web

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Women’s Boxing from around the web


Over at The Sweet Science, David A. Avila has one of his periodic pieces on the pound-for-pound best women’s in professional boxing, entitled, appropriately enough, “Avila’s New Female Fighter Pound For Pound List.” 

As a the chief everything of a blog devoted to women’s boxing, I probably shouldn’t admit to the fact that I don’t feel sufficiently up on every women on the list to opine … suffice to say it was good to see the likes of Holly Holm and Mariana Juarez who just had a great on May 21st, not to mention Melinda Cooper and Ana Julaton.  If you’d like to add your opinions head on over to the site to voice them in the comments or post them here.

To punctuate why Mariana Jaurez should be considered, here’s the first part of her recent bout with Gabriela Bouvier.

Next, check out Inspiring Women’s Sports for Niamh Griffin’s piece, “Why do we box?”    The link is here and is worth heading over to listen to some inspiring audio clips from “Christina McMahon, Australia Muay Thai fighter Kelly Simon and a few boys including Irish pro-boxer Willie “Big Bang’ Casey.”

The clips are from radio interviews Niamh did some time ago and finally put together for a piece.  Really … check it out!

Finally, boxer, writer and filmmaker Jill Morley also has a blog these days called appropriately enough, Fighting It. 

Jill’s written a truly gut-wrenching piece that is not only worth the read, but worth the time to think about what it all means in your own life.

The piece is entitled, “When Life Gives you PTSD, Turn it into Lemonblog,” and I urge you to give it a read.  The link is here.