She was helped back to her changing room by her trainer and by Stephanie and asked for an aspirin. Her face virtually pulped, Katie was in a bad way but no one apparently understood at first the extent of her injuries. Over the four rounds, Katie had been struck in the head 199 times. It was a 12-punch fusillade to Katie's head in round four that finally prompted her trainer, Joe Gallegos, to throw in the towel and rescue the novice. By round three, the spectators were screaming for Anani to finish Katie off. In the second round, she continued to pummel her hopelessly inexperienced opponent, including one powerful, four-punch combination to the skull. For those curious, there is a video of what happened and it does not make for easy viewing.ДЄnani, who has a windmill style, flailing her fists against her opponents high and fast, smacked Katie's nose at the start, breaking it and starting the first flow of blood. What she does know is that everything about her life has been different since then.

For her, it is all a muddled haze of fists and sweat and spurts of blood and abject humiliation.

Stephanie remembers the night well, but Katie does not. Her name was Sumya Anani, or Island Girl (she once lived in Jamaica), who, in the years since, has emerged as one of the biggest names in the sport. It was just one day after Dallam received her boxing licence, that she was put up for a bout in a firemen's hall in St Joseph, Missouri, against an opponent who clearly was the better contender. After a bare six weeks of training, he started looking for someone she might fight. In mid-1996, she approached a trainer of her own. She already enjoyed working out and lifting weights and wondered about boxing. But, just like Fitzgerald, she decided in her thirties that she wanted more.

After years struggling with alcoholism herself, she finally earned a masters degree in counselling and began working for the state health department. Aside from her sister, she had an older brother who used to batter her as a child and has died of alcohol and drug abuse. Guess what? Dallam was also from Missouri and similarly underprivileged. At its end, he is asked by her to unplug life support after the injuries from that last fight leave her paralysed from the neck down. In the film (if you have not yet seen it, you may not want to read on) the trainer becomes a father figure to her.

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