Marlen Esparza hopes to KO two-minute rounds for female professional fighters

LAS VEGAS – In only her second professional fight, former U.S. Olympic bronze medalist Marlen Esparza (1-0) has made a major decision she hopes will change the face of women’s boxing.

Esparza, 27, from Houston, has decided to fight three-minute rounds instead of the two that are mandated for women’s amateur and professional boxing. And that will begin with her fight on Saturday on the undercard of the Canelo Alvarez-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. main event at the sold-out T-Mobile Arena here.

Esparza’s four-round flyweight contest against Samantha Salazar (2-3) will be part of a free-view before the televised portion of the HBO pay-per-view event (9 p.m. ET). It will be live-streamed on HBO’s Youtube channel.

“Just to be on this undercard is amazing,” Esparza said. “I feel the promoters are doing a good job of picking women (to give) TV time to, because we only get so much air time, and to waste it on someone who can’t showcase the talent we have would be a lot more hurtful for us than helpful.”

Esparza definitely has the talent. She won bronze in London in 2012 but did not qualify for Rio. It was one of the biggest heartbreaks of her life, not having had the opportunity to fight in Rio last year. And, she says, it cost the USA women a medal because she’s sure she would have won at least another bronze.

But that’s in the past and she’s looking ahead to being part of the rapidly rising women’s professional game, which has been aided by the popularity of two-time Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields. The Flint, Mich., middleweight has already headlined a Showtime card in only her second pro fight.

Esparza has taken up the mantle for the three-minute round for women pros, which she says is only fair to give them equality with the men.

“To be honest, this is something I’ve wanted to do since before I even wanted to go pro,” she said. “If the men go three minutes to showcase what they do, I think the women deserve three minutes as well.

“When I fought my first fight in Fantasy Springs Casino (Indio, Calif.), it was too quick. I think there was a lot of emotion because it was something new, and just when I got in a rhythm, the bell rang. I felt it wasn’t fair to me or any other woman who is in the gym training just as hard (as the men) to not be able to get that extra minute. I could have stopped somebody if I had an extra minute.”

Esparza has an opponent for her three-minute rounds, however, and a powerful one at that. Mauricio Sulaiman, the president of the WBC, the organization leading the way to improve safety standards in boxing, disapproves of allowing female fighters to go to three-minute rounds, though he has no power to stop Esparza for this fight since the WBC is not involved.

Esparza spoke to Sulaiman beforehand in hopes of getting his blessing because she wanted to do it the right way.

“I spoke to Mauricio because I’ve learned, along with the pedigree that I have in the amateurs, I was also blessed with a lot of media and sponsors at a young age, and I try to do things the right way and not disrespect anyone with authority, and play my cards right. He said he’d be willing to meet with me about it and hear me out after this fight, but he’s against it.”

Sulaiman told Paste BN Sports on Wednesday night that safety has no compromise.

“Boxing is not a popularity contest. And our job is to protect the fighters,” he said. “Boxers are so courageous. They would fight 15, 20, 50 rounds, and they would fight 10-minute rounds (if necessary). They would fight without gloves. They are an honorable, special breed that would do whatever it takes to become someone in life.

“Our job is to protect them. Our job is to lower the risk as much as possible. History has shown us that boxing once had 40, 50, 60 deaths per year, and today we are down to two or three and that is too much. So there is no compromise, safety will never be threatened, and the WBC has medical data that proves that the physiology of women is different from men.”

In boxing, Sulaiman said, you don’t score points and you don’t hit home runs. “You punch people. There’s a very simple formula we have developed to understand the risk,” he said. “Fatigue plus dehydration plus heavy blow equals possible concussion, possible death.

“Women in the WBC will never fight three minutes or more than 10 rounds unless there’s a proven fact from medical research that says different.”

Several studies have found that concussion rates are higher for females than males.

Yet Esparza continues to forge ahead with her three-minute rounds and believes that someday it will become part of the women’s boxing landscape.

“I signed with Golden Boy, I have a lot of support and we deserve to go three rounds, and I wanted to be the one to get that started,” she says. “And once I do three minutes, I think it’s going to be a ripple effect. And it will be something they can’t deny us anymore.”