Kaye Scott: “I don’t have anything firm to report but the pro debut is in the making.”

Kaye Scott: “I don’t have anything firm to report but the pro debut is in the making.”

By Chris Akers                                                    
At the recent Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Australian boxer Kaye Scott won a silver medal at 70kg. Yet one word is common when she assesses her performance in the final – bittersweet.

“It’s a bit of a tough one,” says Scott via Zoom. “Overall, I’m proud to get a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games and it does take a lot to get there. It’s not just about those fights you have at the Games themselves. You have to win at state level in Australia, then you have to become national champion, then there’s a preparation camp, then it’s your performance at the Games.

“It is a little bittersweet because of my performance in the final. I didn’t bring my A game. I’d never been stopped in my 115 fights and then it happens in the final of the Commonwealth Games. To be honest, I still don’t really have an explanation as to why that exactly happened. I’ve fought Rosie [Eccles] and we’ve probably done 50, 60 rounds with each other and she’s not at a level where we can’t have a bout with each other and be very competitive. I just don’t think that my head was quite in the moment there.”

Though naturally disappointed, as any boxer would be at missing out on a gold medal, Scott praises her opponent’s tactics in the final.

“I won’t take it away from her. She did come in with a great game plan. My preparation was nice and steady, take your time and box, and she came to close the distance from the get-go. So, I have to give props to her and her team for those tactics as they worked.

“I still leaves a bittersweet moment when everyone goes ‘Oh I watched the final,’ as I can’t just be proud of that moment in there, as I know I could have done so much better. But that’s sport and just got to move on accept it for what it is and just be proud of the stuff leading up to that moment. It’s been a long time coming to be able to make your way to that top level.”

Birmingham was the third time that Scott had competed at the Commonwealth Games, an event that the city was not awarded until late 2017. With a shorter preparation time hampered by worldwide events that have occurred over the last few years, it led to a quite unique, if very well run and successful Games.  This is something that Scott agrees with.

“It was definitely a very different Games. Even the setup of having five different villages. You mixed around with the same athletes and we stayed in hotels and not with your own country. The camaraderie that you would get a bit more within a Games village wasn’t there and that’s because there were a lot of Covid protocols that were in play. That’s the way the scenario worked its way out.”

The boxing tournament was held at the National Exhibition Centre, in one hall of many hosting different sports. Hall 4 was transformed not just as a ring with spectators around the side, but as a stage for pre-fight entertainment. Music, breakdancing and poetry were all used to entertain the crowd before the bouts of the day. It was an environment that Scott appreciated.

“The venue itself for boxing was spectacular. It was a really good environment. They had a great DJ who set everything up and created the mood and the vibe there. I loved that. The volunteers and the public that came along, that was tops. Everyone was super friendly and encouraging, and when you went outside, they would ask ‘Can I have a photo?’ and ‘How you been doing.’

“To be honest, we should be grateful that the Games were able to go ahead, as lots of times been paused with construction and all that kind of stuff.”

While her experience of the Commonwealth Games was a good one, there were times a few years ago when a lack of respect for women’s boxing was still prevalent. Scott had experience of this less than a decade ago, all because of her uniform.

“We took a vote at one stage on what we wanted our uniform to be, and the girls actually did vote to have a skort in our world championships tournament,” she explains. “The entire team had a skort and top when we went over to the world championships.

“I fought all the way through the world championships and that was in 2016, so was actually the year I got a silver medal. Before I went into the final, the evening beforehand, one of the AIBA head admin came over to me and my coach and said, ‘You may not wear your uniform in the final tomorrow. I was like ‘Sorry? What do you mean?’ He said, ‘There been complaints made that your skort is distracting the judges and if you wear it in the final, you’ll forfeit the win.’

“I was thinking ‘Oh my God, what am I supposed to do?’ It was about eight o’clock in the evening and I was in hysterics wondering what was going to happen.

“I ended up having to borrow one of the New Zealand girls’ shorts. She was a 60-kilo fighter, and I was fighting at 81. I had to wear her shorts inside out, so it didn’t say New Zealand. I think they would have been more distracting as they looked like leggings on me, like tiny bike shorts as they were so tight on my legs. That was quite a bizarre experience.”

There was an attempt, as Scott describes, to make skorts mandatory when they were first brought in at the Olympics in 2012.

“They tried to force anyone to have skorts. There was an uproar about it, so they said we could wear skorts or sports shorts. And then only a few years later, when I am choosing to wear the uniform that they wanted to make mandatory they said to take it off as it’s disrupting the judges.

“To be honest, by the time it happened, and we get back to Australia, which is two days later, not that we forgot about it, but that wasn’t the focus, and we didn’t do any more on it. It was left as that’s that.

“To be honest, as an amateur, when decisions go down that you don’t agree with, you put in complaints, and nothing ever happens with it. You take it on the chin.  We made complaints about things in the past and it’s like ‘Thanks for your complaint blah blah blah but we reserve the right to our decision.’ I feel like it falls on deaf ears. It didn’t affect my performance in there so I’m just happy to move on from it.”

Despite this incident, there has been great progress made in women’s boxing, especially compared to what Scott encountered when she first started out in the sport.

“I started 12 years ago. Particularly in Australia where it was very limited, in the state where I first started it was illegal for me to box. I couldn’t actually fight in my state. When I started boxing training and going to a few comps and watching the boys, I asked my coach ‘Do you think that I could have a fight in the next 12 months as that would give me the motivation to start coming in and being more serious?’ And he just said ‘Oh, no.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He was like ‘You can’t fight in New South Wales. We’d have to get a plane to Queensland to fight.’ 

“New South Wales was forced to change the law when it was introduced in the Olympics because it was going to be unfair that the rest of Australia was going to trial it. If you think 12 years ago it was illegal to fight and where we’re at now, where we’re having pro fights, females headlining and even all-female cards, we’ve come a huge way.”

Progress, Scott feels, still needs to be made, but also that women’s boxing has made significant progress in the last few years.
 
“We’ve still got progress. A couple of key points is money in the pros and also, why don’t women fight three-minute rounds. I don’t understand why that doesn’t happen. In the amateurs, the elites fight three by three, the same as the men. There’s always work to be done. But we’ve only been stepping up and improving each time and it’s good to see a lot of the general public start to realise that females can be just as entertaining, and have a great skill set in the ring to appreciate and enjoy.”

All thoughts are now to turning professional and arranging her first professional contact, though Scott may be leaving the door ajar for a crack at qualifying for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

“I’ll still be leaving the door slightly open for the 2024 Olympics. There are a few things in the way Australia qualifies for it that are changing that might make me think I might want to try for the Olympics. But my focus is I’m going to have a couple of pro fights and see whether I like that style of things, whether I’ll be going on the pro side or when they start to schedule the Olympic qualifiers whether I decide to go back down.

“Definitely be having a fight coming up within the four-to-eight-week timeframe. We’re still trying to lock down a show and an opponent. I don’t have anything firm to report but the pro debut is in the making.”

When last speaking to FightPost earlier this year, Scott mentioned that she would like to be a firefighter once she hangs up her gloves. Is this still the case?

“That’s still definitely a possibility. I still want to look for my career outside of boxing. I still think I have a couple of years good in me and the body’s held me up well, I’m fine with the training and still loving it. But you do need to expand your horizons outside of that.

“I’ve been doing personal training on the side but that’s not filling my cup completely. It’s not what I want to do outside. It’s just very convenient with the boxing when I have to go away. My work is very understanding. My clients always come back to me. I’ve also been seeing a career practitioner just to see what other doors there are. I also like a little bit of commentating. I’ve been doing a very small amount of that back home.

“I’d love to still be linked to boxing somehow. No, I don’t want to be a coach. I’ve given up some much being an athlete. It’s so time-consuming. It’s been my life. You don’t have that much of a full balance between things, so I can’t imagine transitioning from an athlete directly into a coaching role and not having any time to myself. I’m happy to be a mentor and maybe assist with a little bit of coaching but not a full-time coach. I wouldn’t want to do that role.”

Bittersweet she may have used to describe her performance in the Commonwealth Games final. Yet the capacity is for sweet times ahead for Kaye Scott when she switches to the professional code.