Delfine Persoon

Yesterday she made the first defense of her WBC lightweight title, with the WBC super featherweight champion Diana Prazak moving up 5lbs to challenge her.

Persoon stopped Prazak in nine.

I was actually planning on doing a RBR for it - a rarity, as I hardly ever cover women's boxing and certainly not as the main event and sole attraction of an otherwise unremarkable card. That isn't due to any misogynist aversion to it on principle - I'm all for women boxing if they want - it just...well...usually isn't very high quality or aesthetically pleasing (spare the boob jokes), to be frank.

This one, however, stood out - champion vs. champion in neighboring divisions...plus, there is the fact that Persoon was rated #1 p4p among women on Boxrec.com, even before her clash with Prazak. Unfortunately, there was no outlet for live television coverage - but the regional Belgian station Focus/WTV does have a full recording of it available on their website:

https://twitter.com/FocusWTV/status/532483590714839040

There is a lot about her style to my liking. She cuts the ring off exceptionally well and her 1-2 is particularly well-executed and powerful (I am trying so hard not to qualify that with "...for a girl...") - and she has innate understanding of distance.

Her chin seems very sturdy, as does her midriff, absorbing hard blows to head and body from known punchers with equal indifference. She isn't afraid to get hit to land one herself - or preferably two - and she has that "Mexican" quality of needing almost compulsively to get in the last punch in an exchange. She works a full two minutes each shift (women's boxing has shorter rounds) and seems to have plenty of gas left in her tank when going or nearing the female championship distance of 10, as she did in Morelli II, Farias, and Prazak.

I saw her pitching a complete shutout of the courageous but outmatched Prazak through eight, steadily breaking her down until the beleaguered Aussie was shown mercy by the ref in an increasingly brutal ninth. Head-turning performance, as Prazak is a good fighter herself - in fact, kind of a smaller version of Persoon in many ways.

I would favor her in a unification with American southpaw Amanda "The Real Deal" Serrano - a former super featherweight and featherweight titlist who claimed her WBO belt the same way Persoon snatched the WBC - by toppling an established Argentinian titlist from her perch (Erica Annabella Farias had made eleven WBC defenses before she ran afoul of Persoon, while her countrywoman Maria Elena Maderna had three WBO defenses before Serrano lay a beating on her). Serrano's only defeat came at 130lbs to respected Frida Wallberg of Sweden - who later suffered her only professional career defeat (48-5 in the amateurs, quite good) at the hands of Prazak, knocked out and put into a coma for several weeks.

Now, do I think on h2h ability or achievement she merits ranking as high as #1 pound for pound in the realm of xx-chromosomes? Absolutely not. She may well, however, be top five - and comfortably within ten. Cecilia Braekhus at the very least, as the undefeated and dominant unified and undisputed welterweight champ, ought to rate well ahead of her. Acuña, Kentikian, Bopp, and Chavez have arguments as well - but none as irrefutable as Braekhus'.

Besides her p4p ranking and unusually good numerical record of 31-1 with 14 knockouts (many female champions have double-digit losses and records more resembling those of male journeymen...and stoppage rates skew very low...) she is also notable as, to my knowledge, the only Belgian world champion in boxing - not just today, but ever. That is, unless you want to count the IBU reign of Gustave Roth as legitimate. His reign comprises nearly three quarters of its brief lineage, although it was a continuation of the same title once held in previous decades by the likes of Georges Carpentier and Battling Siki. Nobody in the world, however, thought his claim to being the actual light heavyweight champion held any weight - not when his reign coincided with (and was overlapped on both ends by) that of the great John Henry Lewis, the lineal claimant. The next - and very shoddy - argument comes from currently active Sasha Yengoyan, who is the World Boxing Federation junior middleweight 'champion'. For perspective, the WBF is the same org that sanctioned a shot rusty Evander Holyfield becoming 'champion' again for stopping Frans Botha in 2010. :!: Aside from Roth, the best Belgian boxers have never reached any honors greater than European champ - which Roth himself was, in three weight divisions. That's back in the eight-division era, too - welter, middle and light heavy. So on paper at least, Persoon has bested the achievements of the greatest Belgian to have laced them up before her.

So what do we make of this part-time boxing champion, whose day job is actually railway lady cop?

Is she deservedly p4p #1? A lock for top five, at least, despite the lack of depth on her resume? (compared with say, a Kentikian)

Top five Belgians, even inter-gender? :think (I'd put Bauwens, Miskirtchian, and Yengoyan ahead of her - maybe the Jamoye brothers? Fegatilli? Can we qualitatively say the men's European circuit is harder than a world title run in the women's ranks?)

 

Yesterday she made the first defense of her WBC lightweight title, with the WBC super featherweight champion Diana Prazak moving up 5lbs to challenge her.

Persoon stopped Prazak in nine.

I was actually planning on doing a RBR for it - a rarity, as I hardly ever cover women's boxing and certainly not as the main event and sole attraction of an otherwise unremarkable card. That isn't due to any misogynist aversion to it on principle - I'm all for women boxing if they want - it just...well...usually isn't very high quality or aesthetically pleasing (spare the boob jokes), to be frank.

This one, however, stood out - champion vs. champion in neighboring divisions...plus, there is the fact that Persoon was rated #1 p4p among women on Boxrec.com, even before her clash with Prazak. Unfortunately, there was no outlet for live television coverage - but the regional Belgian station Focus/WTV does have a full recording of it available on their website:

https://twitter.com/FocusWTV/status/532483590714839040

There is a lot about her style to my liking. She cuts the ring off exceptionally well and her 1-2 is particularly well-executed and powerful (I am trying so hard not to qualify that with "...for a girl...") - and she has innate understanding of distance.

Her chin seems very sturdy, as does her midriff, absorbing hard blows to head and body from known punchers with equal indifference. She isn't afraid to get hit to land one herself - or preferably two - and she has that "Mexican" quality of needing almost compulsively to get in the last punch in an exchange. She works a full two minutes each shift (women's boxing has shorter rounds) and seems to have plenty of gas left in her tank when going or nearing the female championship distance of 10, as she did in Morelli II, Farias, and Prazak.

I saw her pitching a complete shutout of the courageous but outmatched Prazak through eight, steadily breaking her down until the beleaguered Aussie was shown mercy by the ref in an increasingly brutal ninth. Head-turning performance, as Prazak is a good fighter herself - in fact, kind of a smaller version of Persoon in many ways.

I would favor her in a unification with American southpaw Amanda "The Real Deal" Serrano - a former super featherweight and featherweight titlist who claimed her WBO belt the same way Persoon snatched the WBC - by toppling an established Argentinian titlist from her perch (Erica Annabella Farias had made eleven WBC defenses before she ran afoul of Persoon, while her countrywoman Maria Elena Maderna had three WBO defenses before Serrano lay a beating on her). Serrano's only defeat came at 130lbs to respected Frida Wallberg of Sweden - who later suffered her only professional career defeat (48-5 in the amateurs, quite good) at the hands of Prazak, knocked out and put into a coma for several weeks.

Now, do I think on h2h ability or achievement she merits ranking as high as #1 pound for pound in the realm of xx-chromosomes? Absolutely not. She may well, however, be top five - and comfortably within ten. Cecilia Braekhus at the very least, as the undefeated and dominant unified and undisputed welterweight champ, ought to rate well ahead of her. Acuña, Kentikian, Bopp, and Chavez have arguments as well - but none as irrefutable as Braekhus'.

Besides her p4p ranking and unusually good numerical record of 31-1 with 14 knockouts (many female champions have double-digit losses and records more resembling those of male journeymen...and stoppage rates skew very low...) she is also notable as, to my knowledge, the only Belgian world champion in boxing - not just today, but ever. That is, unless you want to count the IBU reign of Gustave Roth as legitimate. His reign comprises nearly three quarters of its brief lineage, although it was a continuation of the same title once held in previous decades by the likes of Georges Carpentier and Battling Siki. Nobody in the world, however, thought his claim to being the actual light heavyweight champion held any weight - not when his reign coincided with (and was overlapped on both ends by) that of the great John Henry Lewis, the lineal claimant. The next - and very shoddy - argument comes from currently active Sasha Yengoyan, who is the World Boxing Federation junior middleweight 'champion'. For perspective, the WBF is the same org that sanctioned a shot rusty Evander Holyfield becoming 'champion' again for stopping Frans Botha in 2010. :!: Aside from Roth, the best Belgian boxers have never reached any honors greater than European champ - which Roth himself was, in three weight divisions. That's back in the eight-division era, too - welter, middle and light heavy. So on paper at least, Persoon has bested the achievements of the greatest Belgian to have laced them up before her.

So what do we make of this part-time boxing champion, whose day job is actually railway lady cop?

Is she deservedly p4p #1? A lock for top five, at least, despite the lack of depth on her resume? (compared with say, a Kentikian)

Top five Belgians, even inter-gender? :think (I'd put Bauwens, Miskirtchian, and Yengoyan ahead of her - maybe the Jamoye brothers? Fegatilli? Can we qualitatively say the men's European circuit is harder than a world title run in the women's ranks?)

 

Why this nagging suspicion that my ratio of effort in typing all that to how many views or shits given there will be is going to leave me questioning misspent time?

 

That's pretty much what I did.

 

I have got Cece in the #1 spot myself, as must anyone that seriusly follows the estrogenic side of the game.

AFAIK only Boxrec has Persoon that high.

The rest are tricky sorting. I have seen Kentikian listed by some websites down around 19 or 20!

Other than Braekhus on top and Persoon and the Argie gals (that is, Bopp & Acuña - not Maderna & Farias :yep) nipping at Braekhus' heels but quite a ways down the ladder from her, along with a host of roughly equivalent h2h talents either streaking hot or cold of late (Chavez, Kentikian, Mathis, etc) - I'm not too sure about exact ordering.

Rating chicks ain't easy! (nor, I've heard it told, is pimping 'em!)

 

She's a joy to watch. Among the very few women I'll go outta my way to catch.


Her, Anne Sophie Mathis, Hanna Gabriel (although she is much further behind in p4p terms), Jackie Nava, and now Delfine Persoon. They are must-see lady boxers...because of high octane performances, as serious competitors and not mere eye candy like the likes of Eagle, Julaton, Dunaway etc.

Some, like Mariana Juarez and Marlen Esparza and prime Mia St. John, are the best of both worlds.

 

Top flight women's boxing > top flight women's MMA.

Of course, that equation is just as true with or without the presence of "women's".