Charity champions put best fists forward for fundraiser

Not all local boxers who participated in a Perth fight night won their matches, but with a combined total of about $7600 raised for pregnancy health research, each woman felt like a champion anyway.

Lisa Greenfield, Cassandra Bowron, Catherine Brosnan and Haylee Wansbrough fought in the 11th White Collar Boxing Fight Night last month, an event where the proceeds from registration were split between Tiny Sparks WA and Women and Infants Research Foundation.

In the weeks before the fight, the women had to adhere to a strict guideline of diet and exer-cise to drop enough kilograms to meet weight requirements — all except Greenfield, who just couldn’t pack the weight on. “I actually had to put on weight,” she said.

“I had been trying to tone up and have lots of protein and do lifting.

“I was still four kilos under, and that was way more stressful than the actual fight.

“I wore jumpers and had about two litres of water just to make weigh-in.”

The 25-year-old was given Bowron as an opponent and in a tough, game fight, she won her match.

Bowron, 30, said while she lost, she won so many other things and watched her body transform into a fitter, stronger and better shape.

After the match, she admitted to missing the structure that came with training.

“I feel at a loss at the moment really,” Bowron said.

“It’s hard to program yourself a certain way and then return to normal living.

“To be honest, I can’t wait to get back into a routine.”

Wansbrough agreed.

“It feels terrible — we don’t know what to do with ourselves,” she said.,

“Everything just kind of stopped.”

The 31-year-old won her fight against an adversary she said was an “absolutely lovely lady”.

When asked whether it had been difficult to throw a punch at someone she knew was friendly, Wansbrough admitted she did have to be a bit distant.

“She was always smiling and always friendly,” she said.

“I had to work on keeping my distance, as our coach said ‘She’s not your friend’.

“But everyone ended up really liking each other at the after-party.”

Brosnan, 30, also won her fight.

She said she would love to put the boxing gloves back on but was not quite interested in following in Muhammad Ali’s footsteps.

“My opponent came at me like a bat out of hell and just kept firing shots,” Brosnan said.

“It shook me to the core.

“I feared for my life.

“But then I found my feet, I found something and my survival skills kicked in.

“I’d love to box again, but as for professional boxing, maybe if I was two years younger.”

The women said a lot of talented local people were beginning to step into Geraldton rings and adopt Ali’s mantra: “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”.