THE FINAL bell for Cecilia Braekhus is near. A professional career that began in 2007 will end this evening in Lillestrom, Norway.
Slovenian Ema Kozin will defend her WBC and WBO super-welterweight titles against the Colombian-born ‘First Lady’ of boxing on a night that will signal the end of her long trailblazing career.
“Of course, there are a lot of emotions,” Braekhus tells Boxing News. “Some sad, some happy. It’s goodbye to a sport that I have been in for many years.
“Every day I go to the gym, I feel so happy and so lucky to still be able to do this. But I feel it’s time, and I know it will soon be over. It’s been a very special training camp.”
“I just feel it’s time, my age, and I just want to see what’s out there outside of boxing while I am still young,” the 44-year-old adds.
“There are a lot of other things I want to experience. I want to explore a life outside of a boxing gym, because I have been doing this since I was 14. So, while I am still young and healthy, I want to experience a different life.
“I still love boxing, and I probably could have a few more fights. Physically and mentally, I am still there. But you only have one life, unfortunately.”
Retirement can be hard. As the bright lights quickly fade away, fighters can struggle to replace and replicate what has been lost. Braekhus intends to keep herself busy once that final bell has chimed.
“The most important thing in life after boxing is not to just sit on the couch,” she says. “For all athletes, it will be a tremendous transition to be in retirement.
“Suddenly, the lights, the audience, the fights, everything is gone. Your phone doesn’t ring as much as it once did. You won’t be doing all these interviews. You won’t be in camp anymore. Being in camp is such an intimate experience. Because you are in it together on this brutal journey.
“I have met so many amazing people all over the world. It’s going to be such a huge loss.
“But I have a lot of plans. I am going to write a book. I am going to do some TV. I am going to do some speaking engagements. I have a lot of things I want to do.
“I will keep myself busy. The most important thing is not to stay inside and lock yourself away and mourn.”
Braekhus spent her first two years in an orphanage in Colombia before being adopted, and life in Norway began.
A professional career that started in Switzerland 18 years ago will end on home soil.
“It’s very important to have my last fight in Norway,” Braekhus says.
“They actually got rid of the ban on professional boxing for me so I could defend my unified belts in Norway in 2014. It was the first fight there since 1981. My last fight just had to be in Norway.”
After a long and successful career, Braekhus could be forgiven for signing out with a much safer option than Ema Kozin. But that was never an option for the former undisputed world welterweight champion.
“A lot of people thought I would take a show fight; an easy fight to ride off into the sunset,” she says. “But I have no interest in that. I have a very strong competitor, and it will be a really tough fight.
“The end has to measure up to the rest of my career. That is really important to me.”
It has been a career with many highlights, including becoming the first-ever four-belt undisputed female champion.
“I can’t do just one high point,” Braekhus replies when I ask if any moment stands out from the rest.
“That’s very hard for me, as a woman in professional boxing and coming from a country that banned professional boxing.
“But, from a sporting point of view, maybe the first fight with Anne Sophie Mathis, because she had just knocked out Holly Holm; she had beaten everyone. Nobody believed that I would beat her.
“I trained so hard for that fight. I won, and everyone was absolutely shocked. That was a big moment for me, and emotionally, coming to Norway to fight for the first time. That was also extremely emotional for me.”
Braekhus (38-2-1) started boxing in a different time. Her combat sports career began in kickboxing, before she made the switch. Braekhus missed out on competing on the Olympic stage, with boxing only making it to the Games in 2012, and women’s boxing has only really risen to the mainstream in recent times.
The progress on her side of the sport isn’t lost on Braekhus.
“The level of commitment of the fighters has always been there,” she says, “but the level of commitment from the outside is now completely different.
“We can now box in the Olympics when we were once banned from doing so in my time.
“Promoters are now putting on fights with the women headlining the shows, and they are actually putting some money into women’s boxing.
“It’s just another world from when I started. There used to be gyms and coaches who used to say, ‘We don’t train women.’
“I have been there, but I have also seen boxing gyms where so many girls are now training. They start so young nowadays. I started when I was 14, and back then, that wasn’t a very popular thing when I started out. It’s so brilliant to see, and the level is so high.”
As the end draws ever closer, Braekhus knows that boxing has defined her life.
“Boxing has given me everything,” she says. “It’s given me a job. It’s given me a community. It’s given me discipline.
“It’s such a complicated sport. It’s extremely challenging, mentally and physically. But it’s such an amazing sport, and all the incredible places I have been.
“I have been fighting all over the world. My life has just been one big adventure. It’s been incredible. It’s been such a crazy journey.”
In those 41, only Jessica McCaskill has defeated Braekhus, in two fights taken during those incredibly restrictive Covid times. Two fights that Braekhus admits probably shouldn’t have happened.
“I don’t really have regrets, but my decision to take those fights during Covid wasn’t a good one,” Braekhus says of those fights with McCaskill, which cost her the undisputed world welterweight title.
Braekhus almost certainly just missed out on the boom times in women’s boxing and the big fights that would have added even more depth to her resume. But, in her time, she played a major part in moving her side of the sport to somewhere near the mainstream and a place of acceptance.
History will be kind to her, and a place in the Hall of Fame is assured.
“I just want to be remembered for what I did,” a reflective Braekhus says.
“I became the first female fighter to go undisputed. I sold out arenas, and I sold PPVs – fighter who helped shape women’s boxing and a fighter whom people enjoyed watching in the ring.”
