Lilyella Craw-Seaman: The Weight & Don’t See?
Women’s boxing is in a difficult transition period. Katie Taylor has recently waved goodbye. Amanda Serrano will soon follow. Her retirement dance will be early next year. Even the likes of Chantelle Cameron and Mikaela Mayer are at the back end of their careers. It’s fair to say the pound-for-pound rankings will look very different in the next year or so. A chance for the next generation to come through.
A bit lower down the food chain, the female side of the sport is also in somewhat of a transition phase. The boom period for the female side of the sport, at least in the UK, and hopefullythats only a temporary position, is over. The early part of this decade was a moment of time that saw opportunities aplenty. But outside of Most Valuable Promotions and a few other promotional outfits, the interest is seemingly waning. Certainly on the small hall circuit, but not exclusively, fights are incredibly hard to come by. You can wait for the phone to ring and give you the perfect fight at the perfect weight. But then you might not see any kind of activity. Sometimes in the current you just have to roll the dice, or forever be sat on the sidelines.
The European flyweight champion and world-ranked Jasmina Zapotoczna hasn’t fought since last November. An almost criminal waste of her talent.
The former Olympic medallist Karriss Artingstall recently announced her retirement after a frustrating end to the latter part of her career. Some fighters are more or less forced to either stay inactive or take risks away from their natural weight divisions. Many do so with mixed fortunes.
Nicola Hopewell, after winning the IBO flyweight title last July, couldn’t find a fight at flyweight, and starved of a fight of any description, stepped up to super-flyweight in May. It didn’t go well; in truth, it couldn’t have gone any worse for her. Shannon Ryan stopped Hopewell in two rounds in Wolverhampton. It was a gamble that didn’t pay off, and the manner of the defeat could have serious repercussions for the remainder of her career.
It’s slightly different for Chloe Watson, a former European flyweight champion, who has dabbled at super-flyweight when she also fought Ryan last year. An accidental head clash prematurely brought an end to that with Watson losing a technical decision. Watson also tried her hand in the bantamweight ranks, but lost a close decision in April to Teresa Makinen. But at 26, Watson can come again. It will be interesting to see what weight Watson settles at.
Lilyella Craw-Seaman is another fighter who chased an opportunity at a higher weight. Craw-Seaman was an undefeated super-lightweight prospect and coming off an excellent victory over Zoe Hunte Smith. But an opportunity presented itself to fight Dee Allen for the Commonwealth Silver welterweight title in her first ten-rounder on Saturday night.
It didn’t quite pan out for the 27-year-old when Allen edged home in Ipswich courtesy of a wafer-thin 96-94 points decision. But for Craw-Seaman it was a risk worth taking. At 27, she can bounce back from her first professional defeat. It was a gamble that very nearly paid off, and there are no regrets. In truth, there shouldn’t be.
“I don’t regret it,” Craw-Seaman told FightPost. “It was fight of the night, and I’ve been in two entertaining title fights now. The result didn’t go my way. I’m gutted to lose obviously, but I know how strong I will be at super-lightweight or lightweight, and I hope now I’ll get the opportunities I deserve from it. So I’m only really look forward to what comes next.”
For every fighter, it’s finding that balance. If you roll the dice, it can go one of two ways. Despite suffering that reversal to Allen over the weekend, I think Craw-Seaman can quite rightly say it was a risk worth taking. At an age where she can come again, and her performance on the night, even in defeat, suggests that she has only enhanced her reputation.
Photo Credit: Brett King
