Crystal Chambers: “I want a belt and the respect that would come with that belt.”

Crystal Chambers: “I want a belt and the respect that would come with that belt.”

I last spoke to Crystal Chambers six months ago. It was, in many ways, a blank canvas. I knew little about her. But as we connected over Zoom, a quite wonderful inspiring, if heartbreaking story soon unfolded. In memory of her father, a talented amateur who once beat Donald Curry, Chambers wanted to have the professional fight her dad never had.

Sadly, Jon Chambers was consumed by drugs for much of his adult life, and his boxing career never reached the heights it once promised. He was nearly an Olympian and taught his daughter how to box. Only memories now remain. “Boxing is all I have left of my dad,” was one quote that stood out from our previous interview. That professional debut was only a few weeks away in June. Chambers was beyond excited for what was to come. But, it never did come.

“It was very frustrating. There were a lot of things going on behind the scenes that were pretty shady. My opponent dropped out late as well. Everything was really messy.” Crystal Chambers’s opening words as she relayed why her professional debut didn’t materialise.

Alongside her originally intended opponent dropping out at the eleventh hour and the ongoing difficulties in trying to secure a suitable replacement, Chambers had to endure what I can only describe as problems women often have to suffer in life, let alone boxing. A sport that is still very much a man’s world in many ways. It might be better if we leave it right there. Another story for another day.

Chambers isn’t bitter about her experiences from earlier this year. Lessons learned and all that.

“It was time and money,” Chambers told me over Zoom. “But I really do believe that you are supposed to enjoy the journey. I took it pretty hard initially. But in the end, I was able to pull myself out of it. I realised it wasn’t a complete waste of time. It was a learning process for me. What I took away from it all was that I needed to set myself up better for success. At my age, doing some amateur fights seemed silly at first. But now, I don’t.”

“I have,” Chambers says when I ask her if she has seen a different side of the sport, especially as a woman trying to navigate herself around the murky waters of sport that is still searching for a complete diverse and equal world. “But that’s the world we live in. Any time you go deep into anything, you will see messy things because we are human. I feel it’s a challenge, and I like that. If it wasn’t a challenge, then maybe it wouldn’t be so intriguing to me. But I like the fact that it’s much more challenging being a woman in boxing.”

The professional dream is still very much alive. Maybe, even more so now. But it will now come first by the way of a few amateur fights. A sensible route that will get the Texas native some ring experience away from the bright lights.

“Getting more training and more experience will be good for me,” Chambers told me. “I am someone who likes to execute. If I have a goal inside of me, let’s get there as fast as we can. How do we make it happen? But last time when the fight fell through, I realised we tried to execute too fast. Having some amateur fights sets me up better for success.”

Chambers now has a new coach. Christine Lopez is now guiding her fighting future. “Crystal is a coach’s dream. When instructed to do a task, she repeats it until perfected,” Lopez says of her new protege. Plans are now in place for the relaunch of the Crystal Chambers boxing story.

“Christine has already got me some fights lined throughout January. She is going to put me in some tournaments so we can get a couple of fights at once. We are going to go extra hard, and I am really happy it’s all going to be in Texas. The whole thing that stirred all this up was my dad, who fought out of Texas. So I can truly represent Texas on that level now.

“My coach said,” Let’s do two tournaments, and then let’s get you signed up for that pro fight.” So I am hoping soon because I am definitely ready.”

Chambers is hoping to have that long-awaited professional debut around March time. She firmly believes that the elapsed time has served her well. “I have grown so much as a fighter on so many levels. There are some things like head movement that I was lacking before. Christine is such an amazing trainer. It’s a kind of a blessing that all this has unfolded. She cleaned up things that nobody was cleaning up. I’m coming in with more confidence. I am coming in with more strength. I’m coming up with muscles. The punches are getting harder as well.”

Chambers works her passion around a day job. “I work full-time for an acting and modelling company, and I work from home,” Chambers told FightPost. “It’s very flexible, I work through the day, so I can train early in the morning and late at night, and I really enjoy it.”

The love for boxing runs deep in the Chambers family. Another generation could be about to enter the world of professional boxing. A mother and son boxing at the same time. Another little chapter to the Chambers fighting dynasty. The smile started to beam even brighter. Chambers couldn’t hold back the excitement of what potentially lies ahead for her 20-year-old son.

“I love it. My dad was a boxer, and the thought of my son doing it, I love that too. I am excited for him. He has some really good skills. They say, like my dad, he is like a white Tommy Hearns and fights like a Kronk fighter.”

Boxing has helped Crystal Chambers in many ways. It brought her back from the brink at an extremely low point in her life. But, her sport is even more than that. A sport that defines her.

“I get confidence from boxing,” Chambers relayed to me. “It gives me strength. Boxing came into my life at a time when I was probably at the lowest point in my life. Boxing just scooped me out of it and took me right back to the highest I have been. I have more confidence now. I am more goal-driven than I have ever been. Boxing teaches you not to fight emotionally, and that teaches you how to control your emotions outside of the ring. Once you’re a champion inside the ring, you are living a champion lifestyle.

“Being a female in the sport is huge to me. Having seen the grimy side of the sport and how my fight fell through last time, being successful as a woman in this sport is so important. Just seeing women in boxing is so inspirational to me. We have to work harder for respect, I believe.”

The journey will start for real early next year. The delay will almost certainly be beneficial to Chambers. There is no telling where the story will end. At the moment, it just needs a beginning. There is renewed hope that 2025 will be when her boxing journey will start to gather some proper momentum.

“I want a belt and the respect that would come with that belt,” Chambers says of what she wants out of the sport. But sometimes, winning trinkets isn’t the only thing that matters in boxing. In many ways, just by being in the sport that she clearly loves, she has already won.