International Females Boxers Association

Second Chances
After nearly a decade off, can Jolene Blackshear celebrate turning 40 with an IFBA championship?
By Brett Lyle

Kalina Fernandez laughed at the assumption, smiling at the miscalculation.
Sure, if she was in the other trainer’s shoes, and was picking an opponent for her up-and-coming fighter, she too would have selected a 39-year old who hadn’t fought in a sanctioned bout in close to a decade over a top amateur fighter with future stardom written all over her.
Back in May when Melissa McMorrow’s camp was debating between which of Fernandez’s fighters they’d rather have their young talent face – Cheryl Houlihan, a 24-year old who had won six consecutive amateur national championships, or Jolene Blackshear, who last stepped into the ring for a professional fight before George W. Bush took office, they came to what they believe was a no-brainer conclusion. They selected Blackshear.
Blackshear’s not as dangerous, is what Fernandez was told.
Fernandez knew better.
A couple of days later, Blackshear won a fourth-round majority draw, a victory she highlighted by knocking down McMorrow three times in the second round.
Older, wiser, stronger – she was back.
Though there’s a nine-year gap in her boxing record, the truth is Blackshear, who goes for an IFBA title in South Korea on Oct. 15, never stopped fighting.
Since a 10-round unanimous decision loss to Margret Sidoroff in February 2000, Blackshear has fought hundreds of rounds, run thousands of miles and trained harder and with more intensity than arguably any woman in the sport.
“She works ten times harder than 95 percent of my boys,” said Fernandez. “They would watch her workouts in awe. I tell them, if they want to look to see what I expect out of them, come watch Jolene work out. She trains like she’s going to fight every time she’s in the gym. She’s got a very – unique isn’t even a strong enough word to describe her work ethic.”
Blackshear thought the Sidoroff defeat would just be a minor bump in the road and she’d be back fighting in no time, but then life got in the way.
She was the main caregiver for two of her three terminally ill grandparents, all of whom died within a year. Then tragedy struck again when her mom developed a life threatening illness.
“Looking back on what happened in my life and how my family needed me to be there, I probably wouldn’t have been able to compete at the time. If I was trying to box, I don’t think I could have been there for my family. That was a higher priority anyway,” said Blackshear. “I don’t have any regrets. There may have been some disappointments, but no regrets. It’s given me more time to learn and get better. “
And get better she did. Fernandez paired Blackshear with Houlihan, with the young fighter needing all of a week to realize she was going to have to work much harder if she had any shot of keeping up.
It was the first time the 5’0”, 108-pound Blackshear had a training partner her own size and Houlihan served as a great gauge for Blackshear to determine how much impact the long competitive layoff had on her abilities.
The two trained together for more than a year, one’s skills complementing the other’s weaknesses, each pushing the other— run one more mile, do 100 more sit-ups, spar one more round.
“We really fed off of each other a lot. Our styles are kind of like a yin and yang,” said Blackshear. “She’s an incredible talent.  It was during that time that I realized that I really haven’t lost a step. I’ve just gotten better.
“For nine years, I always wanted just one more chance. Then I had that one more chance. Now I’m going to have another chance. Now it’s up to me how long I want to keep doing it. But I wasn’t done. I wasn’t finished. I still have some fight left in me.”
She’ll need to summon that fight on Oct. 15 when she takes on Dan-Bi Kim (5-1) in Icheon City, South Korea. Blackshear has the odds stacked against her. She’ll have to get her legs under her after a long flight and she’ll be playing the role of villain to Kim’s hero as a raucous crowd supports the hometown girl.
A powerful puncher who Fernandez calls a “complete fighter,” Blackshear is in the best shape of her life. On the cusp of 40, she knows more of her boxing career is in the rearview mirror than in front of her. She wants to make each fight count, exerting maximum effort and shooting for maximum results. She wants to put on a show; she wants to leave the ring knowing that she put forth, in her words, “a spectacular athletic performance. “
If she does that, she believes she’ll leave South Korea as the IFBA Mini Flyweight Champion. 
A long time in the making.