tHe’s flooding the room behind a world champion you probably haven’t heard of. In front of a big poster of shirtless Bruce Lee adorning her walls, Diana Plazak often laughs and laughs when she talks about her most unlikely career and her path to the top.
Expatriates from Melbourne are undoubtedly the most successful professional boxers Australia has produced. She achieved the ranking of the best active professional boxers Pound pound 2014 – But celebrating her world champion status remains unfortunate in her home country.
“It really breaks my heart because we were always told what Sports Mad Country Australia is and how proud we are of athletes. [media] She says on a call from her home she shares with her American wife Naomi in Riverside County, on the border of Los Angeles County in California.
“It’s disrupted. My country really doesn’t acknowledge what we’ve done.”
She says this without obvious bitterness or anger. Professional female boxing did not have male sports profiles or prize money. Now, despite being retired for two years, she can see other promising women beginning to build profiles that are never possible for her.
45-year-old Plazak was led to international women’s boxing earlier this month Hall of Fame In Las Vegas as a sporting legend, it was worthy of a postponed celebration of an extraordinary career that barely happened.
aDeep in the western suburbs of Melbourne, SA child Plazak from Hoppers Crossing has always been a good sport. She was a small cross country runner and a tennis player. However, she also experienced abuse. She didn’t start coping psychologically until she was an adult.
“My abuse happened when I was a child [is] I was able to accept that, so I only dealt with it later in life.
“My fitness has decreased as I became a workaholic [in information technology] There were no goals. My coping mechanisms were food and alcohol.
“Being a fighter was a way that made me feel like I’m in control again, just like the outlet. I wasn’t supported and I didn’t want my life to be defined by things that were past.
“I was really a very drinker. I was a chain smoker and I was really overweight.”
She explains how she became a sport that captivated her.
“My ex was a muso and we were doing a gig together one night. I was just pissing, and my companion came over and said it was new. [boxing] Gym [nearby] If it’s just opened and I want to come and check it out with them, I… that’s how it started,” she says.
“I asked the gym owner about sparring and he said, “What’s the bloody point? You’re too old, you’re too fat, you’re also a girl — you’re never going to be anything in this sport.” And they were motivated words for me.
But she was wrong. She was very good. She had a natural talent. However, she also became obsessed with her desire to get better and better during sparring.
“In the beginning it was a way to get better, but then I got better and train harder every day became an absolute obsession. I really wanted to be the best. I definitely and won.”
However, the Plazak was already close to 27. It’s a clear disadvantage considering many of her contemporaries have been in the ring since mid-October and have been competitive for years. After only six months of training, Plazak had her first amateur fight. She won it – and her next five amateur matches.
She decided to become an expert. She says she felt she had no choice but to move to the US as she could be one of the best in the world. So in 2012 she moved from Melbourne to Los Angeles.
She had no promoters or sponsors.
“I had to do that from my bat,” she says.
However, she got engaged as her trainer, the famous world champion Dutch boxer, kickboxer and actor Lucia RickerShe is called “the most dangerous woman in the world” by sports media. She rented a motel room on Sunset Boulevard while preparing for a shot in the Swedish World Boxing Council women’s super featherweight title.
LA was a culture shock. He was often lonely and sometimes horrified due to random street crimes, including the threat of robbery.
“i was there [at the motel] For about four weeks, she says. It wasn’t like what I thought it would be like that. It was too scary to walk down the street after it got dark. It was crazy. But I had to run for us to run, like all boxers do. So I worked during the day and then I ran in the night. It was very scary. But I was quick because I just had to.
“I had stab wounds and shootings every night, and I heard sirens 24/7. It was just a massive culture shock.”
However, her eyesight lies in Sweden, and in 2013 she won the super featherweight world title, knocking out champion Frieda Wahlberg in the eighth round. Even after her success, she went home and was barely advertised for her efforts. Protect the title.
Top professional male boxers are expected to make millions of dollars from prize money and sponsorship, but Plazak’s financial rewards were as scarce as advertising. Pre-match training costs were often up to $20,000 (US).
“It’s a huge inequality. After almost every fight, we’re going to be red. I’ve retired for two years. I think all I’ve made so far was 17 grand for the fight.
When she finally retired, Plazak lost only four of the 18 professional fights, eight of which were won by knockouts.
She says that boxing, and her huge drive to win, brought great personal sacrifices and sometimes physical pain, giving her life meanings that she could not imagine before she entered the ring.
“Boxing took a lot from me, but it also gave me a lot, it gave me a balance in my life…it gave me the world to travel, become a champion and a goal I thought I would never achieve.
Plazak says she feels a deep affinity with Australia despite her last 13 years of living in the US.
“When I arrived [Barack] Obama was president and he wanted reelection,” she says. But as we all know, it has changed. I’m in a same-sex relationship and I’m a double citizen here. But I will never become an American, and they know it, and I feel it. ”
Having conquered the world of professional women’s boxing, Plazak has turned his eyes to return to Melbourne.
“My ultimate goal is definitely to go back to Australia, stay home and visit the state so my wife can visit Melbourne and see her family rather than visit mine.”
The Boxing World Champion’s homecoming, who was once a coincidence to the ring.
