Cecilia Brækhus vs. Anne-Sophie Mathis II

Zero discussion on this rematch, despite being on the shortlist of scheduled 5-star upcoming matches on BoxRec (along with Golovkin vs. Brook, González vs. Cuadras, Kovalev vs. Ward, and Crolla vs. Linares) and potentially not only the ♀FOTY but a FOTY candidate irrespective of gender.

Opinions were split on their last meeting in 2012, with some believing the Frenchwoman had done enough with her constant aggressive pressure & criticizing the unified welterweight champ for her clinching and stalling tactics, while some felt the Colombian-Norwegian managed to cleanly outbox & outfox the challenger.

Brækhus has fought eight times since, adding two more world title belts to increase her collection of hardware to 5 and become undisputed in the division, cleaning out most of its foremost contenders young & old, hardly any soft touch in the mix, her opponents sporting a combined 154-23-5 record. These included stoppages of the aging Mia St. John (probably the biggest name on Cece's résumé but also the unworthiest rival of late just due to being well into her forties) and then-undefeated Dominican puncher Oxandia Castillo.

Mathis has fought just thrice in the same time span - once per calendar year, all while campaigning a division north at light middleweight. She dominated Yahaira Hernandez in 2013 - another Dominican with a high KO percentage, but less artful than Castillo and with erratic weight & conditioning patterns...still, a dangerous choice for a confidence-building tuneup after the loss to Brækhus. She followed this up with a WBO & WBF unification match in 2014 with then WBO & WBF middleweight titlist Christina Hammer. Most observers felt the 17-0 local German heroine was knocked out fair & square, but Mathis was disqualified under the auspices of 'rabbit punching' (having not received any warnings or deductions). The result was later changed to a No Contest. Finally, she fought to a draw last February with the aforementioned Castillo in a top 5 candidate for 2015 FOTY.

Classic boxer vs. puncher match-up, and two of the elites of the sport renewing their rivalry. Worth checking out, even if you don't generally follow women's boxing. :good

 

:nono

It wasn't as though Mathis never hurt Brækhus.

And this is her last chance, win or retire permanently, so expect her to put in everything she has left. She's dangerous.

 

Just realized this and Brähmer vs. Cleverly are probably going to conflict. :think

 

I showed my gf the 1st round of Brækhus vs. Mathis I and started fanboying so hard.

"Look at this sequence here, a few seconds before the bell. See how she draws the lead with the right hand feint and then pivots clear of harm while staying in range to simultaneously land a flush counter jab? Do you see that? Do you have any idea what a sick degree of mastery that is? Like, yeah, okay fine, you can oversimplify and say it looks just like nothing more than stepping to your left and flicking your hand out, but 99% of people on earth, regardless of gender, and even with lots of training and experience, would not be able to execute that like she just did. Respect game."

...and then she got bored, as the conversation was no longer about the potential empowerment and elevation of women's boxing in coming generations (over a long, slow process, if we get more of the cream of the crop facing each other like this on a consistent basis, and if participation rates increase as the stigma lessens and the vicious cycle of "women's boxing is boring and so people don't watch it and so girls don't believe they can do it and never take it further than sparring or amateurs if they even go to a gym and so there's precious little competition for the shining few in the mostly dull talent pool to hone their skills on and challenge themselves and so there's a prevalence of mismatches or just hard to watch fights between unskilled chicks which is boring and so people don't watch it..") and thus pertinent to her interests and had degenerated into me just being a massive nerd.

But yeah, I'm hype for this rematch. The first meeting was fun, even if the clinching was a bit excessive.

 

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Brækhus TKO2!

 

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Much better quality:

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Impressed that Cece brawled (albeit intelligently, with some rope-a-dope mixed in and plenty of swift movement on her feet in between spurts of pitched battle).

No problems with the stoppage, either. Mathis turned her back after being drilled mercilessly a few times in a row.