Christy Martin won her last boxing title in Syracuse. Then came a fight for survival

The first time Christy Martin was asked to visit the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, she wanted no part of it.

It was in 1996, right after Martin’s bruising bout against Deirdre Gogarty — seen by millions on the undercard of the Mike Tyson-Frank Bruno pay-per-view — helped women’s boxing break through to a worldwide audience.

After being booed by the Las Vegas crowd before the fight, Martin and Gogarty won the fans over with an entertaining brawl. In the second round, Martin knocked Gogarty down, then Gogarty got up and broke Martin’s nose. Martin, covered in blood, won a unanimous decision and became an overnight sensation, making the rounds on late-night talk shows and becoming the first female boxer to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

When Hall of Fame executive director Ed Brophy called and asked her to be the grand marshal of that summer’s Parade of Champions during the induction weekend, though, she was adamant.

“I said ‘no,’ and I said ‘no,’ and I said ‘no.’ ” Martin said in an interview with syracuse.com earlier this week. “The PR guy that was working with me at that time, he said, ‘Christy, you can’t say no,’ and I said, ‘You don’t get it. Those old timers are the real legends of boxing. They don’t want a woman up there.’

“Finally, he just told me, ‘You have to go, Christy, you can’t not do this.’ And thank God I did, because I had such a privilege to get to interact with the greats. I mean, the true, true legends of boxing.”

Martin has been a regular guest at Canastota’s annual induction celebrations. This weekend, though, will mean even more to her, because she won’t be just a guest.

Martin will be back in the parade as part of the Class of 2020, the IBHOF’s first to include female fighters. Her induction was postponed twice by the Covid-19 pandemic, but she’ll get to take the stage Sunday at the Turning Stone Events Center as the classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022 are all inducted.

She’ll be joined by the likes of Roy Jones Jr., Floyd Mayweather, Andre Ward, Laila Ali and more as part of the largest induction in the hall of fame’s history.

For Martin, it’s the culmination of a long journey from tiny Itmann, West Virginia, in the heart of coal-mining country.

It’s a journey of impressive highs and shocking lows, documented in last year’s Netflix documentary, “Deal With the Devil,” as well as Martin’s new memoir, “Fighting For Survival: My Journey Through Boxing Fame, Abuse, Murder, and Resurrection.”

Her story is a harrowing chapter in boxing’s unsavory history with domestic violence. Martin fought on the undercard ahead of fights featuring Tyson and will be honored this weekend next to Mayweather, another boxer who has faced accusations and served jail time as a result of multiple incidents of violence against women.

Martin has made a few stops in Central New York since she was taken aback by the reception she received from the hall of famers more than 25 years ago.

“It was exactly the opposite of what I had anticipated,” Martin said. “Carmen Basilio, Gene Fullmer and Bob Foster were there. Archie Moore. Willie Pep. They all had seen my fight, because it was with the Tyson fight, and they gave me credit as a fighter.

“And then they just kind of all treated me like their granddaughter.”

One final championship in Syracuse

Martin was near the end of her career when she had a chance to fight in Syracuse.

She fought Dakota Stone at the New York State Fairgrounds on Sept. 2, 2009, for the vacant WBC world female junior middleweight title.

For Martin, it was a chance to become a champion again, to get closer to a personal goal of 50 career wins and fight in front of the Central New York fans she had grown fond of in her years visiting Canastota.

“It was nice that she had that fight here because she had been so close to Central New York coming to the Hall of Fame weekend for many years,” Brophy said.

“We set up a ring on the museum grounds the week before the fight, and she would train every day on the grounds and get ready for the fight.”

It wasn’t an easy night for the 41-year-old Martin. In her book, she wrote she was “a far cry from the fighter I used to be.” Though Stone entered with a pro record of just 9-7-4, she’d challenged for a world title before and had a 6-inch height advantage.

“Unfortunately, what I probably remember most is in the last round I broke my hand in several places,” Martin said.

An overhand right connected with Stone’s head and shoulder. Martin immediately knew her hand was broken. Despite the injury, Martin finished the fight and won a majority decision, claiming one more world championship.

“To put that green belt around my waist — and put that belt around my waist in Syracuse, New York, so close to the Hall of Fame — it was very special. It was a special night.”

The 49th victory in her boxing career turned out to be her last.

While she left Syracuse a world champion, her private life was spinning out of control. A little more than a year later, she hit rock bottom in a very public way.

Shot and left for dead

Not long after embarking on her professional boxing career as Christy Salters, she married her trainer, Jim Martin in 1992.

On the surface, it looked like a boxing love story, with Jim constantly by her side as Christy’s success continued and her fame grew.

The public perception and the reality were vastly different, though.

A Netflix documentary and Christy’s book paint a picture of a relationship fraught with troubles, with Jim becoming increasingly controlling — setting up cameras and recording everything around their house — and psychologically and physically abusive.

Christy had another secret: Before marrying Jim, she had relationships with women. Her sexuality had caused strife with her family while young. As a boxer, it didn’t fit with her girl-next-door public image. She was worried what would happen to her career if the truth came out.

“I was a lesbian locked in a sham marriage designed to protect me from a sporting world I’d come to believe would never accept me as I was,” she wrote in her book.

In 2010, a year after her last victory in Syracuse, Christy reconnected on Facebook with Sherry Lusk, a woman she’d had a relationship with in high school. Eventually, Christy went and spent a few days with her.

Christy wrote that Jim had threatened to kill her if she ever left him. After she returned home from visiting Lusk, he nearly did.

On Nov. 23, 2010, Jim stabbed Christy multiple times. As she was on the floor, he shot her in the chest.

“My body is dying,” she said in the Netflix documentary. “And my mind’s like, no, I don’t want to die. I have to get out. I have to save me.”

She wrote that she heard the shower running when Jim went to clean himself off. She found the strength to get up, get outside the house and flag down a passing car to be taken to a nearby hospital.

Jim was convicted for attempted second-degree murder with a firearm and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

“You shot me with my own gun, basically point-blank,” Christy testified at the trial, looking straight at Jim. “And guess what, motherf—r? I walked out.”

‘God left me here for a reason’

Martin said telling her story can be difficult.

“It’s a double-edged sword, because it is hard,” she said this week. “And usually, after I go in depth to really talk about all the things that happened, it takes me a day or so to kind of get realigned.

“But I feel like, and I said this from my hospital bed, God left me here for a reason, and that reason is really just to try to help other people. I feel like that’s what I have to do.”

Now, she is an advocate for victims of domestic violence as well as the LGBTQ community. She started a charity, “Christy’s Champs,” to help young people.

“At first, I felt like as long as I helped one person in my life, I’ve done my job. Then I thought, if I’m helping one person, that’s not enough. I need to help one person every day,” Martin said.

“Of course I want to talk to the person so they can have strength, and be true to themselves and open up to who they are. But my heart really, really wants to talk to the parents and the family, because I know how important it is for the child to feel accepted, and for the parents to understand — this is your child, love your child, accept them and be glad that they’re healthy and happy and loved.”

Back to Canastota

While Martin is excited to be back in Canastota for this weekend’s inductions, she’s saddened her younger brother, Randy Salters, will not be there for her big day.

“When I got the call that I was going to be inducted, probably the first call that I made was to my little brother,” she said. “He passed in November 2020 from cancer, so he’s not going to be there. My mother is very sick, just a few months later she was diagnosed with the same cancer, so my parents won’t be there. And that’s sad for me.”

But Martin will be there with her wife, Lisa Holewyne, a former rival and sparring partner. The two faced each other in the ring in 2001 and were married in 2017.

Ron Borges, the co-author of Martin’s book, “Fighting for Survival,” is also being inducted as part of the Class of 2022.

And then there are the fans, who Martin said are the main reason she kept coming back to Canastota year after year.

She’s thrilled that, after a three-year hiatus, they’ll be back at induction weekend.

“It always amazed me how this little village of Canastota made the weekend so special. It truly is Titletown. Everywhere you turn, there’s something about boxing.”

Including her plaque on the wall of the Hall of Fame.

“It’s the underdog story,” Martin said. “Look, I’m a coal miner’s daughter from a small town of 500 people in Southern West Virginia. I made it to the top of the boxing world. And now I really made it to the top of the boxing world — I’m going to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.”

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