Stevie Morgan: “It could have gone bad. They had the guns right to our heads; it was wild.”

Stevie Morgan: “It could have gone bad. They had the guns right to our heads; it was wild.”

A simple social media post from Stevie Morgan saying her fight scheduled for tomorrow night had been cancelled didn’t give any indication about what led to the fight against the unbeaten Jenny Tulcan falling away at the eleventh hour.

Fights fall by the wayside all the time. It’s nothing new. It’s part and parcel of the game. I messaged Morgan asking why her fight wasn’t taking place this weekend. I expected the 37-year-old to tell me that her opponent had pulled out injured or that she hadn’t made the weight. Tulcan might just not have shown up. It could be a multitude of reasons. But what I got back was totally unexpected. “We got here last night, and on our way to the location for the weigh-in today, we got held up and robbed at gunpoint.”

It was a shocking revelation. And it must have been a harrowing, deeply disturbing experience for the American. “We’re okay,” Morgan said. “It was a scary situation. I definitely could have got killed. The car doors were child-locked, so we couldn’t even open the door to get out if we tried. It could have gone bad. They had the guns right to our heads; it was wild.”

Morgan and her coach were in Bogota, Colombia, when two men on motorcycles pulled up alongside their car. The robbers got away with a small amount of money and some jewellery. Morgan was lucky. Extremely lucky. One wrong move. One wrong word, and it could have ended very differently.

Thankfully, Morgan is ok. A little shook up, but she is alive. “We’re sick about it. I was looking forward to this fight.”

Morgan is incredibly grateful for her coach, Monyette Flowers, who was beside her in this horrific ordeal. “Monyette was amazing. And I am so thankful. He kept me calm the whole time.”

On advice from her coach, Morgan wisely pulled out of her fight with Tulcan. The American still wants to fight the same opponent before the year is out, albeit at a completely different location. You can’t blame her for that.

“I feel like I can’t catch a break with this boxing stuff,” Morgan says. It’s been a frustrating period for the world lightweight contender. Morgan hasn’t fought since her 4th-round stoppage victory over Simone Aparecida da Silva in January. Morgan is the mandatory challenger for the WBA world lightweight title, currently held by Stephanie Han. Morgan is still waiting for that opportunity. The scheduled fight against Tulcan was kind of forced upon her. Morgan wanted Han, but she also wanted to fight. In quite unbelievable circumstances, even that was denied her. “I’ve only heard about this kind of stuff in the movies,” Morgan says.

But despite all those frustrations surrounding her boxing career of late, there are more important things in life. Life itself. Stevie Morgan will appreciate that more than most right now.