By Alex Pierpaoli
Stevie Jane Coleman, lightweight boxer, out of Columbia, CT looks to pick up her fourth victory in a five fight career this Saturday night at Mohegan Sun. Coleman scored her first stoppage win as a pro in her last fight at the Uncasville venue back in August when she toppled debuting Jesenia Rivas in just :39 seconds.
“I feel great,” Coleman smiles. “I feel like this has been my best camp so far.”
Coleman, 22, sparred twice a week for Saturday night’s bout, 6 rounds each session.
With just one week left to go she spars six hard rounds with veteran Jaime The Hurricane Clampitt at CT’s Manchester Ring of Champions Society. Coleman practices her jabs, attempting to keep the shorter, pressuring Clampitt from boring inside and banging her ribs. They circle, feinting, exchanging hard combinations. These days, Clampitt, now 46, serves as both an inspiration and an invaluable resource to young female boxers. Coleman’s trainer, Paul Cichon, watches from outside the ring and shouts instructions. This is the laboratory where boxers experiment with new and different things, and the results of experiments gone wrong is logged in pain and black and blue.
“Switch southpaw!” Cichon shouts. Coleman does and Clampitt retaliates immediately, closing the distance and blasting her with a hard right to the chest. Coleman switches right back to orthodox. Coleman has learned a lot in just five years of competitive boxing.
“I had my first amateur fight at seventeen years old. I turned pro at twenty.” Coleman had ten fights as an amateur and became New England Golden Gloves Champion in 2020. She lives at the family’s sheep farm, along with about fifty rabbits and fifty chickens.
In Connecticut, one thing that goes along with rural settings is the proximity and potential interaction with local wildlife. Coleman experienced her own version of When Animals Attack while out running just last year.
“She called me and said she got attacked by a dog,” Cichon recounts. “I said ‘well does it have a collar?’ She said ‘it took off, but it looked like a maingy german shepherd.'” Cichon laughs. “I said ‘you got attacked by a coyote!’ It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny then.”
“It was like a week out[before a scheduled fight], maybe a little more,” Coleman recounts. She had been doing her roadwork when the coyote came up behind her and knocked her over. She balled up, reflexively, but was bitten on the hand and ear. Not knowing whether the coyote was rabid and considering it was atypical behavior for the species, Coleman went through the required battery of rabies shots and was forced to pull out of a fight scheduled for last April.
She runs a different route these days and part of this week’s fight will be with the scale as this bout takes place at 135lbs, the lightest of her career.
“I’m two pounds away,” Coleman says. With six days to go she’s not worried about making the weight and can focus on her opponent.
“I know she comes out fast…I’m looking forward to that.” She smiles. “I’m looking forward to a good fight.”
Coleman fights on the undercard of a scheduled ten bout fight card promoted by Rhode Island based Classic Entertainment and Sports. Tickets are still available through their website or at the Mohegan Sun Arena Box Office.
Fist Things First 