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[tense droning]
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[Christy] Most of the time, I feel safe,
but I still have my weak moments.
I ask my counselor all the time. I'm like, "It's almost nine years."
"When am I gonna get over it?"
She says,
"You're not."
[tense music playing]
Throughout my life, the only place I felt safe was in the boxing ring.
[newsman] She's had the most knockouts in the history of women's boxing.
[Christy] Number one, there are rules. Every punch is planned.
[crowd cheers]
[newsman] She is the world's best. The most famous female boxer.
[Christy] Number two, I had so much anger.
The only place that I could let it out was in the boxing ring.
[crowd cheering]
[Christy] And number three, boxing was my survival.
[newsman] A champion female boxer living a secret double life.
It was preparing me for how I was gonna escape my own destiny.
[Christy] Hit me as hard as you want, as many times as you want,
and I might get beaten,
and I might get knocked down,
but, motherfucker, you cannot kill me.
[tense music intensifies]
[music fades]
["Your Sweet Love" by Lee Hazlewood plays]
♪ Stranger's arms ♪
♪ Reach out to me ♪
♪ 'Cause they know ♪
♪ I'm so lonely ♪
♪ Then my mind ♪
♪ Goes back to you ♪
♪ And your sweet love ♪
♪ Sees me through ♪
[song fades]
[insects chirping]
[deep breaths]
[Joyce] Christy just started boxing on a dare from her classmates in college
to enter a Toughman Contest.
[Johnny] She'd never done any fighting or anything.
Well, she'd been in some fights, but… [laughs]
it wasn't in a ring.
-[laughing] I was going like this. -[producer laughs]
[crowd cheers]
[Johnny] Christy threw one punch,
and she was looking around in the ring, trying to find her.
She was laying at her feet. She done knocked her out.
-[blow lands] -[crowd cheers]
[Christy] She was big.
Five-nine, 150 pounds,
and I knocked her out with one punch.
I've never even been in a boxing gym before.
[cheering and applause]
To land that knockout punch is like the biggest high you could ever have.
Whoo!
[Christy] I fought three times. I won 300 dollars.
But I got hooked.
[laughs]
Money, money, money!
[Christy] And after one of the fights,
a promoter told me that he had this trainer
from Bristol, Tennessee that could train me.
[Joyce] Christy Salters. Champion.
[Christy] His name was Jim Martin. He had 26 professional boxing matches.
He sparred with Marvin Johnson, the great light heavyweight champion.
So it got me excited, like, "Wow, I can do this. I've got it."
The first day I went into the boxing gym to meet Jim Martin,
my mother was with me,
and I had my little baby Pomeranian,
but as I walked in, you could feel the air go out of the gym.
Like, "Oh my God, what's about to happen?"
And when I first met Jim,
I asked, you know, "Where's the dressing room
for me to change?"
He wouldn't even tell me.
No one would even tell me where the bathroom was.
[buzzer sounds]
[door closes]
[indistinct background chattering]
[Jim] You get inside that gym,
inside that ring, inside that arena,
you're on my territory.
[gentle piano playing]
I didn't want nothing to do with women boxing,
and I didn't wanna be laughed out of the sport.
A promoter pressured me into training Christy,
but instead, I told one of my little fighters,
"Look, I'm gonna put her in with you
and bust her up a little bit and get her outta here."
He wanted him to break my ribs so I wouldn't wanna be in the gym,
but it didn't happen because my mother was there.
I got her mother and a little baby Pomeranian dog,
which hated me.
[dog barking]
So I had to cancel it.
My fighters kept saying, "Give her a chance. Give her a chance."
"Work with her a bit and see what happens."
I said, "Okay, I'll give her a chance. Let's see what she's got."
Keep your punches up.
[Jim] When I first trained Christy,
I'm going like, "Man, this… this woman, she don't know anything."
She's like walking on crutches she's so damn clumsy.
But then we seen she had a real good chin.
[blows landing]
You have a chin or you don't.
[blow lands]
Christy's got a granite chin.
Hit her with a sledgehammer, and she's still standing there, looking at you.
I said, "I'm gonna make you a fighter."
[groans]
Come on.
[Jim] So we start looking for the ideal sparring partner.
And she found him. [laughs]
Jim was like, "Hey, I got somebody wants to spar with you."
I'm like, "Shit. Where they at?"
I walk in, and I'm seeing the new guy.
You know, I hear, "Pow. Pow, pow."
It sounds like a bomb.
"Damn, who… who's this?"
I look closer, and it was a girl. "What the hell?"
-[grunts] -[Jim] "That's who they want you to spar."
"What? Hell no! I'm not getting in a ring with that girl. You crazy?"
But I guess we clicked.
She gave me several black eyes and fat lips and all that good stuff.
[both grunting]
I tell a lot of the guys I spar with, "I know a girl who hits harder than you."
She does. She hits harder than half the lightweights out there.
[grunts]
[Christy] As time went on, I proved to him that, "I'm here. I'm gonna stay here."
"I don't care what you dish out, no matter how hard you make me work."
"Because of who I am, I'm gonna try to do it better
than everybody else in the gym."
[Jim] Come on!
[Jim] Man, she works harder than my men fighters.
She does everything I say.
If I'd told her to jump off the roof, I believe she'd do it.
Then he started saying what he's famous for saying, that…
I said, "Christy, I'm gonna make you the best woman fighter in the world."
I thought he was full of crap.
I didn't think it was gonna go anywhere.
Even if you make me the best woman fighter, so…
No one's doing it. No one's getting paid to do it.
[announcer] In the lightweight division, from West Virginia,
let's welcome Christy Martin.
[Jim] When Christy came onto the scene, I called fight promoters.
"I'm trying to get Christy on this fight card."
They said, "Tell you what. I'll put her on there, but I'm not paying her."
Everybody thought it was a joke.
The next fight, a promoter gave us a bunch of tickets.
I said, "What's this?"
He said, "Whatever tickets you sell is gonna be your purse."
We sold two tickets.
Christy fought for 60 dollars.
[crowd cheers]
[Christy] I was so broke, but Jim kept saying,
"This boxing thing is gonna work."
And the trainer-boxer relationship,
you have to believe in them, trust in them.
Your life is in… in that trainer's hands.
I looked up to him.
He was in my corner.
[Jim] I always ranked myself
between the number one to the number five best coach in the world,
but I needed a good product to work with,
and I feel like I had a good product with Christy.
She was a Mike Tyson-type fighter.
Boy, this girl can punch.
[crowd cheering]
[man] Yeah!
Yeah!
[man cheers]
She's gone! She's gone!
[Christy] We had everybody standing on their feet.
Everybody couldn't believe a woman was doing this.
[crowd cheers]
Fight promoters, they would even tell us, "My God, she stole my crowd."
"She was the best fight of the night. Everybody loved her."
[woman] Christy!
But it wasn't about being a woman fighter. I just wanted to be a fighter.
[crowd cheering]
[Christy] After one of the fights, you're so excited. Everybody's so happy.
And I kissed him.
[crowd cheering]
[sighs] I can't… I don't even… I don't even know what happened.
[announcer] …by way of West Virginia,
introducing Christy "The Coal Miner's Daughter…"
[Chrsity] I am truly a coal miner's daughter,
coal miner's granddaughter.
So I grew up in coal mining country.
-[gentle atmospheric music plays] -[train horn honks]
[Christy] It's good people.
There's just not a lot there.
[birds twittering]
Not even a town. It's just a little stretch of road.
[door opening]
But when my grandmother passed, I wanted to buy the house,
so I would have a place to stay when I came to visit my family.
And…
I feel guilty because I have let it run down.
But, hopefully, we'll get that all turned around
and get it back to where it should be.
Hmm.
I think it's important for you to always be able to go home.
-[piano gently plays] -[Joyce] When Christy was growing up,
everybody calls her Sis.
Sis was just energetic. She didn't ever just sit and watch TV.
My dad was an athlete, so I played Little League baseball.
Actually, I played for the boys' team.
[Johnny] And she didn't play just anyplace.
She was a catcher.
[Christy] And I played basketball.
I was pretty good, actually.
She was All-State two years, so she was great.
I met Sherry through basketball.
She was, like, the star athlete of Mullins High School.
You wanna be friends and be close to the person that's the star.
She just asked me,
"Could we work out together and… and shoot ball together?"
But then feelings started to happen that were,
you know, they're not the normal kind of feelings.
[Sherry] It was the blooming of a…
[laughs]
I didn't know what it was. There wasn't references.
There's no Internet. There's no talking to anybody.
And, you know, you know you had to hide it.
[Christy] In my opinion, most everyone knew or suspected,
but my parents turned a blind eye.
[Joyce] In high school,
Sis always had girlfriends.
I mean, you know, friends.
[Sherry] There's no way they couldn't know with me coming in at those times.
I think they were just in denial.
That's not what you want for your child.
I just wasn't raised like that.
I had to hold in who I truly am,
and I was angry.
But I'm not so sure if I didn't have all this stuff inside of me
that I could have become the fighter that I was.
[Christy grunts]
-[Christy grunting] -[Jim] I just ended up caring for her.
I always wanted to protect her.
That was in everything. I don't know why… how that came about.
Went from a hate situation to a love situation,
'cause I hated she was in the gym, you know, when she first come in.
[Joyce] We were very surprised when they became romantically involved
because he was so much older than she was.
There was a big age difference,
because he's older than I am.
[Jim] Smile.
[Joyce] Jim was good to her.
He looked out for her.
I loved him just like he was a son.
[Jim] I was never with any other woman like I was with Christy.
Nothing ever embarrassed her to talk to me about.
[Christy] I felt like I could tell him all about me,
even all the bad things about past relationships with women.
That bothered me.
And if I'd known that off the bat, she wouldn't even have stayed in the gym.
But Christy's past is her past.
Her past has nothing to do with our future.
I think we went to Kmart or Walmart
and bought two rings, you know,
and, uh, went and got married.
[Christy] Really, when I married Jim, I married boxing.
He gave me an opportunity, and I was ready to take advantage of the opportunity
and… and ride it to the fullest.
[wind blowing]
Now, it's up to me as a promoter to create what I call the magic of excitement,
and this is what separates me from "mediocracy" to excellence.
Love him or hate him, Don King was the world's greatest boxing promoter.
Brought some of the greatest fights to boxing.
[newsman] A new era in boxing.
[Christy] And promoted all these legends.
I never sat back and thought,
"I'm gonna be boxing for Don King someday."
I mean, why would he sign a woman?
But everything's about timing.
Finally, we arrange a meeting to go down to Don King's office.
Don King Productions.
[Christy] First time a woman boxer was gonna meet him,
so I take a VHS tape. I pop it in.
Well, his VCR is not working.
So I just get up and start shadow boxing for him.
And he starts that famous Don King laugh.
[laughing]
And he says, "I love you. Sign her up. Let's get it done."
And we said, "Can we take that contract and let our lawyer read it?"
He said, "That contract don't leave this table."
Then he said, "What'd you fight for your last fight?"
"Well, we only made a few hundred dollars."
He said, "Do you wanna fight for 5,000 dollars a fight
or for a couple hundred dollars?"
We said, "Give us that contract."
-[producer] How'd you feel? -[clears throat]
Rich.
[laughs]
Well, let me introduce to you the first lady of boxing, Christy Martin.
A dynamic, beautiful boxing/fighting sensation.
[Christy] He promoted me just like he promotes his male fighters.
"I'm gonna put you out there, Christy, sink or swim."
I fought all over. I mean, I was fighting in Vegas every two weeks.
I got no breaks.
I got no special treatment.
I felt like I had to bring a lot of action because I can't give anyone an excuse
to say something negative about my fight.
[bell dings]
[commentator] Christy Martin in the pink, going right after Sonja Dunlavey.
She can hit, and she's an athlete, so watch her moves.
Look at this!
Whoo!
Oh! Right hand!
She may be out.
It's all over.
King's all about the dollar,
and he knew that I was making waves and I was getting the fans excited.
[bell dings]
[Jimmy] When Christy fought "Slammin'" Sue Chase,
I hear this, "Boom, boom, boom."
I look back, and I was like, "Oh my God!"
It's Mike Tyson right there, man. Just cheering Christy on.
[commentator] What an exchange this is!
[Mike Tyson] I believe I was in jail,
and they were talking about Coal Miner's Daughter,
she's knocking out people, and she's really exciting.
And I'm like, "Get the fuck outta here," you know?
But then I started going to some of her fights.
[crowd cheering]
She throws a lot of hard punches,
crowd-pleasing.
She gave everybody their money's worth.
[commentator] She's not being thrown off.
So I said, "Put Christy Martin on my undercard."
[Christy] I could never dream that I would be on Mike Tyson's card.
I mean, how can this be? I'm from a town of 500 people in southern West Virginia,
and here I am in the middle of this huge fight on a pay-per-view show.
[announcer] Mike Tyson returning live on pay-per-view from the MGM Grand.
That might have been the first time where I was like, "Oh shit," you know,
"I've made it if I can pull it off today."
[crowd chattering indistinctly]
[tense electronic music playing]
[commentator] Martin taking on Ireland's Deirdre Gogarty.
The first women's bout shown on pay-per-view.
From a fighter's perspective, this is really big.
Half of the planet's watching her.
-[crowd chanting] Bruno! -Fifth round, Tyson knocks him out!
[crowd] Bruno! Bruno!
Phew. Wow.
-Okay. -I don't know if it's gonna be my day.
It's all right. Just all tension and nerves.
[Jim] Christy prayed before the fight.
I'm a nervous wreck too,
but I don't let her see it.
My job was to build her up.
You okay?
[Jim] Don King was scared to death.
He said, "Oh my God, if this thing falls through,
people are gonna hang me."
-Gonna be good. -Good to see you.
[Jim] He said, "Christy, don't let me down."
"Please don't let me down. Make this a good fight."
Come on, Christy.
[Christy] As I walked out into the fight, I can hear that people booed me.
[crowd booing]
Like, "Oh my God, I'm getting booed in front of 100,000 people."
[man] I didn't wanna see a girls' fight,
and I wasn't too impressed by the fact that we had one.
[Jim] It made me so damn mad.
[Deirdre] There was a lot of drunk people shouting obscenities.
"Now we gotta watch a women's novelty sideshow."
[crowd booing]
[Deirdre] "Oh lord, this is not going well already."
[announcer] This is a female special attraction in the lightweight division.
[Christy] I was so excited,
but yet I was so scared.
But then it was like, boom, the switch flipped.
Go to your corner and wait for the bell. Good luck.
[Christy] If you want the fans to remember your name,
you have to go out and make a statement.
[bell dings]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Christy grunting]
[commentator] She can punch! Look at that, what an athlete!
Oh, down goes Gogarty.
[crowd cheering]
And she fights back, unloading on Christy Martin.
Martin swinging wildly.
-Oh man! -[crowd cheering]
[funky music playing]
Back comes Gogarty again.
Whoo! It was just a war, back and forth.
The crowd was going crazy.
Everybody, everybody, they were cheering both of us.
Yeah! Yeah!
[commentator] I'm no doctor, but that's a broken nose.
They couldn't get my nose to stop bleeding.
[doctor] Good job.
[Christy] The doctor would come into my corner,
and I said, "Look, I'm fine. Do not stop the fight."
[commentator] She is bleeding profusely. I've never seen this.
[Jim] All the movie stars come out of their seats.
"Damn, there's a hell of a fight going on here."
-[commentator] This is entertainment. -[Jimmy] Boy, it showed the whole world
two women that could fight like that,
that had heart like that, that could bleed like that,
and still come out from round to round to round.
[commentator] Another furious exchange.
And it was a great feeling. Boy, the crowd went nuts over it.
[commentator] Both fighters showing tremendous heart.
[bell dings]
I guarantee neither of those young ladies was paid enough
for the efforts they put forth here tonight.
[Christy] I was uncertain about the decision,
but I knew we had put on one hell of a fight.
[announcer] All three in favor of the winner,
"The Coal Miner's Daughter" Christy Martin.
Yes!
[crowd cheering]
[Jim] I'm standing over in the corner.
I'm just proud when I know that she does what I taught her.
[Christy] I had given it every ounce of energy that I had for that fight.
I remember, I actually laid down in the shower and I thought I was dying.
When I got back to my room that night, my voicemail in my hotel room was full,
and the requests were from, um, The Today Show, Leno Show,
Conan O'Brien,
and I was hurt because I… I called my PR guy,
and I'm like, "Why would somebody play such a bad joke on me?"
"I fought… I really fought hard."
He says, "You don't understand, honey. That's for real."
I'm like, "What?"
Christy Martin battled Deirdre Gogarty for six brutal rounds
in front of millions on television in 170 countries.
All the talk was about Martin-Gogarty.
There wasn't a person I was with who didn't come away tremendously impressed.
Many boxing fans said the Martin-Gogarty fight,
with no disrespect to the others,
was the most exciting and competitive bout that night.
To get fight of the night on a Tyson show, you don't even dream that.
I believe she broke her nose, blood streaming the entire fight.
[Christy] The blood everywhere made everybody stand up and take notice.
Probably the most lucrative bloody nose in the history of boxing.
Christy Martin's fight that night put women's boxing on the map.
No doubt she put it on the map.
Eighty million viewers actually watched our fight.
[Christy] I feel like I was ready to take advantage of the opportunity.
So many people were telling me, "You can't do it. You'll never make it."
All right, just watch.
-[announcer] Christy Martin! -[crowd cheering]
The best female boxer out there. Please welcome Christy Martin.
[audience cheering]
-[cameras clicking] -[Jim] She's a star.
All the movie stars knew her. All the sports people knew her.
People overseas knew her.
[newsman] We're discouraged from getting involved romantically
with the people we cover.
I thought, "Oh, there's Sis."
"Sis is famous."
[laughs]
If I'm gonna hit someone, I'm gonna try to hit them on the chin or…
-[audience laughter] -[Christy laughs]
I went on to all those shows. Just one after another.
Christy Martin took the boxing world by storm last month.
Her performance in the ring landed her on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
When they told me, "You're gonna be on the cover of Sports Illustrated."
"You gotta be kidding me!"
[newswoman] She is the first female boxer to earn that distinction.
[Christy] I went to the store and bought one
so the guy would have to look at the magazine, look up at me,
and he doesn't notice!
[cameras clicking]
[broadcaster] Once considered the lowest rung on the boxing ladder,
women are now a curiosity and great demand.
[Christy] All of a sudden,
promoters were putting a women's fight on every single card.
[commentator] She's taking some shots from Christy Martin right now. Wow!
Everybody fought their A game against me,
their A-plus game because it was their Super Bowl.
[commentator] Look at them, toe-to-toe!
And I always felt like everybody's waiting for me to make a mistake.
[commentator] Look at this war! Wow, how about that?
That wasn't gonna happen. I would just go harder.
[commentator] Look at this spinning…
She goes in the ring for one play. That's to put you on the mat.
[Christy grunts]
[crowd cheering]
She hurts when she hits! [laughs]
[Christy grunts]
[Christy] Every punch I threw, I wanted to knock someone out.
I mean, the adrenaline rush puts you so high.
[ding]
[broadcaster] Don King signed Christy to a four-year contract,
promising to make her a millionaire.
[Jim] We got cars. We got basketball courts.
We got a swimming pool. We got jewelry.
We got clothes that would fill half this room.
We got everything.
We were really rich.
Best in the world, baby. Best in the world.
Look at how far she made it, how high she made it.
-[crowd cheering] -It's a dream come true for all of us.
[inaudible]
[Christy] I was on top of the world.
The crowd was going nuts, chanting, "Christy, Christy, Christy!"
[crowd cheering]
[tense droning plays]
[Lisa] 90% of every punch that we threw in the gym
had Christy Martin's face on it.
[crowd cheering]
[man] Yeah!
[announcer] From Crawford, Texas, it's Lisa Holewyne!
[crowd cheering]
[bell dings]
[Lisa] She was the champion that other fighters couldn't wait to see fall.
I get a lot of criticism from other women fighters
because they think I should put them on my shoulders
and carry them to the forefront.
Hey, this is business, you know. I worry about promoting Christy Martin.
[Lisa] Christy was outspoken,
easy to dislike.
[Christy] Women today are making more money than ever for one reason.
That's because of the show Christy Martin puts on every time that I go out there.
So, I really think they should all be sending me 10% of their purse. [laughs]
[Lisa] There was a huge difference
between Christy Martin and all the other females.
Certainly, every female fighter had a job
and had to figure out a way to take off for fights.
And she could have said,
"There are other women out there that are good."
Occasionally, she could have mixed that in.
[Jim] I always said when Christy gets out of boxing,
there isn't gonna be more women boxing.
You know why?
'Cause she was effeminate.
[cameras clicking]
Christy's image was as important as her boxing skills.
Christy was known as the girl next door,
and she wasn't going in there looking like a boy, acting like a boy.
She's like a typical housewife. She cooks, does her hair, does her fingernails.
Am I allowed to make you blush a little bit?
-[Christy] Sure. -You have a very lovely smile.
You have very attractive features.
Okay.
[Jim] I mean, who puts butts in the seats?
Men.
If Christy didn't sell any tickets,
I don't care how good she was,
Don King would not have had her on those cards.
I'd like to say one thing. Andrea, you have a nice dress.
This is the first time I've seen you dressed respectable, looking like a woman.
[crowd] Oh!
[Christy] The whole pre-fight hype bullshit,
I-- I enjoyed it.
[indistinct yelling]
You know, small town West Virginia, Coal Miner's Daughter, baby.
She ain't for ****. That's why she gotta steal on somebody.
I told Christy Martin, "Good luck."
I got told, "Good luck getting knocked the fuck out."
Well, I said so many bad things.
I'm gonna put something on you you never had before.
Maybe only from your girlfriend. I don't know. Maybe she put it on you.
-[crowd] Oh! -What's that?
You know what.
I mean, I said a lot of really rude comments about, uh,
homosexuals.
[Jim] There are women fighters who come in like, you know,
wear a flannel shirt, driving a Jeep,
chopped-off hairdo, and sorta manly type.
[Christy] But also, Jim did encourage that behavior,
and I would tell him, "Jim, you don't understand."
"I'm gonna keep saying this stuff,
and somebody from my past is gonna peep up."
[commentator 1] Because Christy Martin has a problem with her opponent's sexuality,
she'll throw her kisses before the fight.
[commentator 2] Mmm. That oughta rile her up.
But it didn't happen, and I continued to say negative things.
First, she will have to prove to me and doctors that she is a woman,
and, um, we can… we can hook that fight up as soon as she proves that.
-[reporter] That she's a woman? -That she's a woman.
[Lisa] We were all struggling with the same identity in a male sport.
There weren't many female athletes
brave enough to be who they were at that time,
myself included.
You think you're a man and punch like a man. You don't even hit like a boy.
You're a punk.
Christy, I like the way you talk. You walk that walk and talk that talk.
But if you're gonna open your mouth and say it, you better back it up.
[Lisa] I was getting ready to fight her, and I was pumped.
"I'm way too strong for this girl. I'm way too big for this girl."
"Have her come at me. Have her come at me."
"She's going down."
[Christy] She was much bigger, much stronger than me.
Lisa was a world champion too,
so I had to actually use my brain.
So I watched how all these big legends fought.
Sugar Ray Robinson, Ali, Frazier, Carmen Basilio.
All those guys are great chess players.
They're able to set you up for, not your next move,
their next move.
[Lisa] I'm like, "She's gonna come right to me.
She's gonna come right to me.
Well, Christy didn't do that.
[Christy] I decided when to step in and throw combinations,
when to load up and throw one big right hand.
[Lisa] I was frustrated, surprised.
You couldn't have told me that this girl had good feet
and good moves and good defense,
because most women didn't make her have to show that.
Oh, Christy could box.
She would keep everything short and sweet.
Slip. Come back.
[punching sound] Back.
When Lisa and Christy both came in the ring,
George Foreman said, "This little girl won't win this fight."
At about the third round, he said,
"This little girl is gonna win this fight." [laughs]
[Jim] She couldn't stand toe-to-toe with Christy.
Lisa got her ass beat.
[announcer] The winner, "The Coal Miner's Daughter"
Christy Martin.
[crowd cheering]
Biggest stage of my career. It sucks.
[Jimmy] After that fight,
Christy was well on the way of being almost untouchable.
[Christy] Yeah, in front of the camera, it was great.
I mean, I would not trade my career for anyone's.
But my personal and private life,
it was so much the opposite.
[Don King] This is her husband and trainer, Mr. Martin.
He's a tough guy.
[Christy] From early on, Don King used being married as a selling point,
so Jim also became a star.
Talk about packing a punch.
You're about to meet a husband and wife team you won't forget.
She is the professional boxer. He is the trainer. They're a knockout.
One little kiss.
[Jim] People in the media would always say,
"You guys made history together."
Mwah.
You say Christy, you say Jim. You say Jim, you say Christy.
Jim, get in here and turn around and get in that shot. First time--
His identity became me.
He would call somebody. He never said, "This is Jim Martin."
"This is Jim and Christy Martin."
Oh, obviously, we have our ups and downs, as any fighter-trainer would,
but, um, sometimes it's a little tougher
because if we have problems at the gym, it'll go home with us.
Or if we have problems at home, it'll come to the gym with us,
but we're doing better.
[Christy] It was just all so intertwined that I couldn't get away.
We've been together seven years. In seven years,
maybe we've spent one night away from each other.
Christy and I, we have no children. We don't get tired of each other.
We just do everything together, and that's just what we like, you know.
[Jim] She didn't go out with women friends.
I didn't go out with men friends.
I didn't want to go out with any men friends.
She was my life. She was my whole life.
[Christy] I mean, he was a great coach for an amateur just starting out.
One, two.
[Christy] But now, when I would watch guys that train real champions…
Again.
I realized that I wanted to have a better trainer.
[somber music playing]
After so many years,
Jim had taught me all he could teach me.
And even if he wants to still be the co-trainer,
I would ask him to at least bring in somebody else,
so I could go to that next level,
but he didn't want me to have anybody else in my corner.
[grunts]
We worked so hard to make this great big bill.
You would think she'd had a little bit more respect for me.
My husband's my trainer and my manager, full-time, like, 24-hour-a-day boss.
Could you knock him out?
Um, no, but some days I might like to.
-[Jay Leno] Yeah. -Yeah. [laughs]
I bet when this couple fights…
Bam, buh-bam, bam.
[audience laughter]
Christy needed some sparring, so we put the gloves on.
You know, we sparred.
[Christy] He's 25 years older,
so I was hesitant to go 100% all-out.
But then, he just, he…
He knocked me out.
[high-pitched ringing]
I've never been knocked out.
I've never been dropped, even.
You know when you're hitting someone in the right spot,
hitting someone hard enough to knock them out.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
I wasn't trying to kill her. You know what I mean?
But I was letting her know she didn't belong in there with me.
[Christy] No matter how good I thought I was
or how tough I thought I was, he wanted to show me he was the boss.
It takes a little cockiness out of them.
You know?
[Christy] Is it abuse?
Yeah, he's smart.
He disguised it.
Have you ever been knocked out?
-No. [knocks on desk] -[Jay Leno] Oh no. Wow.
[Christy] And all I wanted to do was leave him.
All I wanted to do was live my life freely.
So, yeah.
I should have.
[Laila] Christy Martin reached out and wanted to fight.
I remember thinking it was a joke. Like, "Really?" [laughs]
Like, "Really?"
[continues laughing]
Oh my God! Because, come on.
I mean, I'm 168 pounds. I'm five-eleven.
I'm big, I'm strong.
What is little Christy gonna do with me?
[crowd cheering]
[announcer] Laila Ali!
[Laila] Most people assume I started boxing
'cause I said, "I wanna be like my dad."
That isn't what happened at all.
When I saw Christy and Deirdre fighting, I remember thinking… [gasps]
"I wanna do that."
So I decided, "I'm gonna start training."
I got a call to spar with Christy
when she was getting ready to fight Laila Ali.
And I was over it enough.
[laughs]
Almost. You never really get over a loss.
I remember feeling like, "This is odd."
Ali's a big girl.
Ali was bigger than me by 15-20 pounds.
I was bigger than Christy by ten pounds, and Ali was the younger one.
That was an insane matchup.
[Christy] We were the two biggest names at the time.
And Jim was all about,
"It'll be the biggest fight in women's boxing history."
[cameras clicking]
I had never seen Laila Ali in person.
So when I actually saw her, I was like, "Oh shit, this is a big woman."
[cameras clicking]
[Jimmy] Christy had to weigh in with army pants on, boots,
and quarters in her pockets. [laughs]
You stood up to me, little mama. You stood up--
Laila! Break it up! Break it up!
[Laila] She wasn't intimidating me. I was talking down to her,
and she felt my power,
and I did notice a bit of a change in her
because now she realized, "Okay, this is real."
Jim was talking to me, and I said, "I don't know about this fight,"
and I'm watching my words
because I'm talking to somebody's husband and trainer
about their fighter and wife.
[Jim] Everybody always says to me, "It's your wife in there."
I say, you know what,
if I sat there and said, "Oh wow, my wife just took a hard shot,"
"Oh wow, my wife's got eyes a little bit swelled-up,"
by focusing on that,
I'm not doing my job.
[Lisa] And so, he said, "Well, I think she can do it."
It was, like, "Conversation over."
[commentator] We're about to witness the most important fight
in the history of women's boxing.
We've waited for months, and now it's here.
[Christy] We sold over 100,000 pay-per-view buys.
We sold the arena out in Biloxi. They had to add chairs.
To this day, it's still the biggest fight in women's boxing history.
[commentator] The anticipation, the sizzle in this arena is tremendous.
The title of women's pound-for-pound best.
Christy Martin will be outweighed.
She promises not to be outgunned.
[bell dings]
First bell rang, Laila hit me with a right hand high on my head…
[commentator] Ali, that overhand right!
…and it just knocked my equilibrium off.
I felt like I was fighting and standing on an angle.
[commentator] Look at the look on Christy Martin's face.
She's doing everything in her power to hang in there.
[Jim] Christy came back to the corner, and she said, "Am I fighting crooked?"
And I said, "No, you're fighting up straight."
She said, "I feel like I'm fighting on a slant."
[Jimmy] I can see the glaze and distance in her eyes.
She was fighting on pure gut and instinct.
[commentator] …as Laila Ali continues to drop bombs.
And Martin is in trouble!
[Christy] I kept trying to hang in there, go a little bit longer,
thinking my head would clear.
[commentator] Martin just not able to punch back!
[Christy] But no matter what I hit her with, she was on me,
and I couldn't get her off of me. I couldn't breathe.
[commentator] She just collapses in the corner.
That's a dangerous fight when you're in there with someone bigger, stronger,
and you're not seeing straight.
[commentator] How much punishment can she absorb?
[Laila] It's the corner's responsibility
to throw in the towel if they have to. It's important for that person to step up.
-Put the heat on her, okay? -Right.
-[Christy] I told him I'm dizzy. -[Jim] Run around, okay?
[Christy] I'm sure I have a concussion,
but he was just like, "Nah, you'll be fine. You'll be fine."
-[whistle blows] -[commentator] Rapid fire.
Again and again and again!
[Christy] Jim could have saved me.
He could have stepped up and stopped the fight.
That's what a coach does.
That's what a good coach does for their fighter, but he didn't.
[commentator] Laila Ali has driven her to her knees.
[Christy] So I took a knee.
Probably if I have to say what's the worst ten seconds of your life,
that's probably the worst ten seconds of my life.
That I stayed on… on the knee.
[commentator] She has never been off her feet until now.
[Christy] He could have stepped up and stopped it.
I could always say, "Jim stopped it. I didn't quit."
But I quit, and that's hard for me to live with.
[commentator] It is over,
and Laila Ali is the reigning champion of women's boxing.
[Jim] When she hit Christy, that was a lucky punch.
I wanted a rematch on that fight.
[Christy] I remember laying in my dressing room that night.
Jim wasn't even there to… to make sure I was okay.
He was out talking to everybody else.
[Jimmy] Christy had at least 30-something fights she never lost.
After so many years being on top,
just seeing your…
[exhales]
… you know, your best friend, basically, pretty much getting whooped.
Yeah, it was pretty rough.
[commentator] …absorbing the worst beating of her career.
At age 35,
you wonder where she goes from here.
[recording crackling]
[sniffing]
-[Jim] You get some coke? -[Christy] No, but I'm about to get some.
-[Jim] Huh? -[Christy] I'm about to get some.
[sniffing]
[Christy] Oh my lord.
[sniffing]
[Jim] One of my fighters brought some cocaine over one night
and says, "You've been asking me to give up cocaine."
"I'm giving it up. Here's my cocaine."
I take it in the house. "Christy, look what Derek gave me."
[Christy] I left it laying there for a couple days.
And then finally, I was like, "You know, I'm so miserable."
"Just let… let me try it. Let me do it."
It went from Friday, Saturday to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday…
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
…to six and seven days a week.
We had coke at the gym.
She'd work out.
Work on that right hand.
Take coke.
Work out.
Take coke.
If I would be hitting the heavy bag, like, "Jim, I'm so tired."
"I don't have any more."
He would say, "Keep hitting the bag." He would cut up a line, bring it.
I had still my gloves on.
You know, I was high all the time,
but I couldn't stop.
I didn't wanna stop.
I would cut up lines into my own little baggie and hide it,
and then I would go back to get it, and it would be gone,
but, you know, that's because he had cameras.
He was videotaping everything I was doing in the house
without me knowing.
[sniffing]
Oh shit. Now, James, you get to scaring me when you do that stuff.
-[Jim] What? -You scare me when you do that stuff.
[sniffing]
[Jim] Whoo!
[Christy] I would call him the Puppet Master.
He's controlling everything.
I would have to perform whatever it might be
in order to get the next line of coke.
[Jim] Oh, I got you on candid camera when you come in.
[Christy] What do you mean? I wasn't coming in there.
Anyone that's addicted, they're gonna do just about anything to get that next line.
[Jim] Christy Martin is ready to come in with a big dick on.
He got sexual satisfaction from me wearing a strap-on all the time,
and that was strange to me.
Why do you wanna see this?
[Jim] Oh, look for me.
Okay. Hang on. Right there.
I would tell him, "You know that I'm a lesbian
so let's get divorced. I'm begging you to please divorce me."
I went as far as to write up a contract.
"I'll take care of all these expenses. Just please leave,"
and, um, he hit me and, you know, knocked my tooth through my lip.
Blood went everywhere.
[producer] Did she talk to you about wanting a divorce?
No. Never.
[producer] She mentioned to me that she drew up a contract at one point
that said, "Let's just go our separate ways."
-Yeah, we did talk about that one time. -[producer[ Can you tell me about that?
Uh…
I don't think it was… I think it was short-lived.
But she would say things like that, then she'd come back and apologize.
[Christy] My parents came to see me,
and I took my mom outside and told her then,
"Jim is videotaping and audiotaping
everything that's said and happens inside the house."
[Joyce] I could see her standing right now telling me,
and I thought she was just more or less saying that Jim was crazy.
[sighs]
[Christy] Jim was a master manipulator,
and he had conned my mother into thinking that she had to stay close to him
in order to know what I was doing.
So I don't think she believed me,
but maybe, you know, I thought she would tell my dad.
[Johnny] She told me there was some of that going on,
but there was… there was nothing I could do.
I can't live your life for you.
You have to live it yourself.
You have to make your own decisions.
[announcer] The women have put on a show tonight.
[crowd cheering]
[Christy] I don't even know what my record is from that point on.
It's more losses than wins,
but he wouldn't allow me to quit.
And I'm like, "Why am I here?"
[crowd cheering]
'Cause I was Jim Martin's personal ATM,
and I didn't know how to get out of the situation I was in.
I was high one night and just looked at my Facebook page,
and I had a message from Sherry.
So after 20-some years or whatever, Facebook comes up.
There comes Christy's picture up on "you might be friends."
So I sent her a friend request
with a little note that said,
"Is friends what we should be called?"
So it just started, back and forth.
"Hey, how are you? What's up with your mom and dad?"
I mean, she knows my family, I know all of her family.
So it was easy. It was comfortable.
From the beginning, she was telling me very deeply serious things.
So I knew she was unhappy in her marriage.
At first, it was just on Facebook, then I'm like, "This is crazy
because he's reading everything that is said on Facebook,"
so she would text me.
I'm like, "He's reading everything, all my texts, too, so just call me."
[Jim] I didn't ask her about it for a while.
I didn't wanna ask her about it.
I'm going, "What the hell?"
"What's this all about?"
I was so unhappy,
and so finally I just told him, "I'm gonna go see Sherry."
"So what are you gonna meet… You gonna meet Sherry over there?"
That's like me meeting one of my ex-girlfriends.
She told me, "Just talked about old times," you know.
Of course I didn't believe that.
First he said, "Can I go?"
And I said, "Uh, absolutely not."
And, um, then he said,
"You know, if you leave, I'll kill you."
And I turned around and stopped, and I looked him straight in the eye,
and I said, "Do what you have to do,"
and I left.
[reflective music playing]
When she shows up, we see each other, and it…
You know, it was…
I could barely breathe.
And she grabs me.
And when she kisses me,
we took that time to shoot right back to high school.
I think we both were floating.
[Joyce] Jim started calling.
"Sis has done this, and she's not coming home."
"Will you call her? Will you call her?"
Jim was calling everybody, trying to find me.
Yeah, he called looking for her.
He just couldn't get her back on the leash.
I did call Sis, and I told her she needed to get home.
[Sherry] And then her mom couldn't get her back on the leash either.
[Jim] So I'm waiting at home. I don't know where she's at.
Finally, she went and picked up the phone,
She told me I was gonna crash and burn.
Then he starts calling everybody, from my relatives to friends, you know,
"Christy's a lesbian. She's left me for a woman."
[Sherry] And he had started texting pictures to everybody.
Everyone.
[Joyce] Jim said, "I'm gonna send you a picture."
It was a terrible picture.
I'd come to find out he had sent that same picture to a lot of people.
He was taking a wrecking ball to everything in her life.
This was my revenge.
Well, what more can you do to me?
Monday, I went to Daytona to see Sherry,
and he called me,
and he said, "I'm so close, I could reach out and touch you."
And I looked around, and I'm… you know, trying to find him.
I… I can't see him anywhere.
"I seen you and Sherry."
"You didn't see Sherry and I."
I said, "Yes, I did." "So what did Sherry have on?"
I said, "She had a purple backpack on her left shoulder."
[uneasy music playing]
She just got quiet.
She didn't say… She knew I did then.
And I said, "Let's go home."
[Joyce] Fifteen to four, he called me. He told me,
"She's home."
I go in to go to the bedroom.
She's coming down the hallway.
I'm like, "Look, my head is killing me. I'm gonna lay down for about 30 minutes."
And the entire time I'm laying down,
I hear him out there sharpening a knife.
Christy went to take her nap. She called me when she got up.
And, um…
Jim came in the room.
She says to me, "He's got something behind his back."
He kept putting his hand behind his back, behind his back,
like, three or four times.
I heard him saying to her, "I've got to talk to you about something."
And then she says out loud,
"Jim, I'll talk to you when I'm done talking to Sherry."
I could feel how that was gonna impact him.
And, sure enough, she goes, "I gotta go," and…
[dial tone]
And it was, like, instantaneously, he hit me,
bam, bam, bam, three times, right under my arm.
And the fourth one, he stabbed me in my breast.
Blood squirted everywhere.
[deep breath]
We get in a fight. We fell to the floor.
[Christy] Someway, we got from the side of the bed onto the floor.
I try to kick him away from me. And when I kicked him…
[Jim] My leg got cut.
[stammers] I really don't know how that happened, okay?
[Christy] He's taking my head and banging it into the dresser.
Now, I get ahold of the knife handle. My hand slips and cuts me right here.
He stopped everything and just left me laying there
and went to take care of that cut.
[water running]
I can hear my lung gurgling, so I know that it's filling up with blood.
He keeps walking in and out the room, coming to see if I had died yet.
I was begging him, "Please don't let me die."
I mean, "I'm sorry, Jim. I made a mistake. Truth is, I love you."
But then, by the time I realized he can't let me live,
I was already like, "Fuck you. I've never loved you."
"You've been a piece of shit."
"I've been your personal ATM. You've done nothing but use me."
And then he stands at my feet
with my own pink 9-millimeter.
[suspenseful music]
I told him he didn't have the balls to shoot me.
And he shot me.
[gunshot]
Then all of a sudden, my body is dying.
And my mind's like, "No, I don't wanna die."
"I have to get out. I have to save me."
"Someway, I have to save me."
Prayed so hard. "God, please, let me get out of here."
And instantaneously, I heard the shower water turn on.
[water running]
I knew that was the answer to my prayer
and also the only time I was ever gonna be able to get out.
It was like, you know, the switch flipped.
I ran to the middle of the road.
The first guy went by me,
but then the second guy, Rick Cole, my angel, he stopped.
I said, "Please don't let me die, sir."
And, um, "I'm sorry, but I'm bleeding all over your back seat."
[Christy] He got me to the hospital.
They have a gurney thing out there and put me on.
It all started.
Late breaking tonight, a world-class boxer wanted to get out of her marriage,
then barely made it out of her house.
[newswoman] Christy Martin shot and stabbed and left for dead.
One of my friends texted me, I'm driving, and I almost went off the road.
I was like, "What the--" You know?
[newswoman] Jim Martin shot and stabbed her in their Apopka home
after she told him she was leaving him for another woman.
The story seemed to grow and grow,
and you were just like, "Oh my God, did I know anything?"
[newsman] Deputies say they're still trying to find 66-year-old James Martin.
[newswoman] They believe he is armed and dangerous.
When I ran from the police, where I went wrong,
when I got scared and left,
I should never have left. I should've stayed right there.
I slept in a tool shed with lawn mowers.
[Johnny] One night, we went to this fella's place
that was a good friend of Jim that lived right down the street from him.
We smelled Jim's cologne, and we knew he was somewhere close.
[reporter] Deputies found the wanted man holding a bloody knife,
hiding out near this shed behind a vacant home.
If I could've got ahold of him, I'd have killed him right then.
And I wouldn't have made it easy either.
[producer] Did you know that Christy's dad and brother were sort of looking for you
while you were missing?
-Did you know that? -Nuh-uh. Mm-mm.
[somber music playing]
[producer] Why would they do that, do you think?
I don't know.
Well, maybe shoot me since it's their daughter.
[Christy] Sherry actually had called my mom from the hospital
to try to tell her how I was.
She told Sherry that she better not be there when she got there.
You know, here, all these years later, she shows up,
and I get shot and stabbed, and, you know, in my mom's mind,
it was Sherry's fault.
There was no acknowledgment that it was Jim's fault.
That it was her fault and my fault for a month or two.
[Christy] I talked to my mother,
and I told her that he had tried to kill me.
And I told my mother she might as well have pulled the trigger.
Because…
I felt like she always took his side.
She would hardly talk to me then, and it was…
it was a long time before she did.
[shaky inhale]
[birds chirping]
[Lisa] I called to talk to Christy, and I'm like,
"Are you okay?"
"Who's Sherry?" [laughs]
One thing's for sure, I didn't creep out of the closet.
I pretty much kicked the door down and said, "I'm here."
The incident caused everything just to go out.
[Laila] I remember hearing the news with her husband trying to kill her
that she was a lesbian.
I remember thinking, "Wow, you never know what someone's going through."
Sometimes we're afraid to be ourselves.
We don't think people accept us or like us.
You know what I mean? We all have that mask of sanity.
We have to be something that the whole community loves.
[Christy] Jim had told me for all those years
how the boxing world would turn against me,
fans would turn against me.
It was… It was so much the opposite.
That's what happens all the time. Our fears never happen.
But the fear of it happening causes us to do damage to ourselves.
You know, no one in the boxing community cares that she's gay.
[commentator] Christy Martin here, walking into dangerous territory.
[crowd cheering]
If you can fight like that, you know, big deal.
It's like, "Yeah. Okay, so she's gay."
"What the heck? Her husband tried to kill her?"
Not only being stabbed, but then being sliced,
then being pistol-whipped,
then having your head bashed into a dresser,
and then being shot.
Christy Martin sat silently while the prosecutor described
how she claims to have been viciously attacked
by her 67-year-old husband, Jim.
The trial, which is now set for May in this case,
and Jim Martin's already filed a plea of not guilty.
We look forward to Christy's day in court and to a just result.
I'm a fighter, and I love boxing.
I am determined to go on with my career
and not let what happened to me slow me down.
[Christy] I wanted to get back in the ring,
but more than anything, I wanted to show Jim I could win without him.
[Lisa] Everything that happened,
in every way that Jim Martin ever said he was gonna destroy her,
if she did not come back and fight,
would have been true.
[Jim] I was never jealous of Christy, never whatsoever,
'cause I know what I'd done.
They're looking at my Rembrandt
that I made,
and they're praising it,
and they don't know they're praising me, and I don't care,
but I know she's there 'cause I put her there.
Okay.
One, two.
[Christy grunting]
[Christy] My first call was to Miguel Diaz.
[Christy grunting]
Miguel Diaz is my cutman.
He always laughs and says, "Make sure everybody knows
I wasn't in your corner the night of the Gogarty fight."
But Miguel is mi papi. I love him.
And I just asked him, um,
would he train me?
I said, "Are you sure? You think you're gonna be okay for fighting?"
She say, "I just wanna know if you will train me."
And that's when I say, "Yeah, absolutely,"
thinking that maybe this is gonna be five months from now,
six months from now.
But, like, within 24 hours, I was in the boxing gym,
bullet still in my back.
[Jimmy] I was down for it.
"Let's get that 50th win."
-Again, I know her heart. -There we go.
[Jimmy] She fights to win.
[Miguel] It's very hard for fighters to understand
when is the finish of their career,
because inside their brains,
they're still fighting to the last point.
It's the only thing they know what to do.
Once we get in that ring and those people start applauding us,
we're addicted. We're hooked.
[crowd cheering]
No drug is gonna replace that feeling.
I can't even explain that feeling to you, and you don't wanna let it go.
It was so hard to give support,
and, to me, not just demand the right thing be done,
and that's not fight.
She didn't like Christy Martin. She wanted me to be just Christy Salters.
Well, I-I'm not.
You tell me I can't do something, then sit back and watch.
If you tell me I can't do it, I'm gonna do it or die.
[crowd cheering]
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, continuing now at the Staples Center
with a very special attraction,
scheduled for six two-minute rounds,
featuring the women of boxing.
[tense music playing]
[Johnny] She just wasn't gonna stop.
And there wasn't gonna be no stopping her.
[announcer] Introducing first, fighting out of the blue corner,
from Auburn, Washington,
here is Dakota "Solid" Stone!
-[bell dings] -Out of the red corner,
tonight, she looks for win number 50,
from Bluefield, West Virginia,
Christy Martin!
-[bell dings] -[crowd cheering]
[hopeful music playing]
-[bell dings] -[spectator] Christy!
First round, we're exchanging good exchanges.
[Christy grunting]
[commentator] There's that right hand! Right on the mark! Right on--
Christy Martin, in my book, got that win.
She was doing good.
[Christy grunts]
[commentator] Oh, big shot by Christy Martin.
I was telling Christy, "Use the jab a bit. Don't go crazy."
[commentator] Always a crowd-pleaser, Christy Martin.
But, for Christy, it's almost impossible to give those kind of instructions.
[bell dings]
[commentator] And again, the reach advantage. It is a four--
Good right hand by Christy Martin, on the button!
It looks like she might have hurt her hand.
She needs to get under that jab, then push her off that--
Oh! Good right hand!
Big one! Big one!
I knock her down. First time she's ever been knocked down in her career.
[commentator] What a right hook by Christy Martin, set up beautifully.
But I broke my hand.
That's the worst thing you can do, throw the right hand over right hand,
on top of the head.
Time.
[commentator] That was a 10-8 round for Christy Martin.
[Miguel] The referee come and say, "How is she?"
"It's okay. She's all right. She's-- No problem."
"The last two rounds, we're gonna be jabbing. Don't worry."
-[commentator 1] That right hand… -[commentator 2] She did hurt her hand.
The only time I could say I actually felt pain in the boxing ring
was when I broke my hand,
but, um, it wasn't painful enough for me to stop.
So I still was able to throw that broken hand.
[commentator 1] She's scoring points. She's working with one hand.
I was winning the fight easily, had knocked down Dakota Stone,
ahead by at least three points on all cards.
Fifty seconds to go.
-[commentator 1] She hurt her hand again! -[commentator 2] Yes, she did.
[commentator 1] She landed the right hand.
She hit it and went like that.
The doctor says, "You're not throwing it. You winced when you did throw it once."
I'm pleading with him.
"I'm not even getting hit. I'm winning the rounds."
Fifty seconds from my fiftieth win.
-I don't care. I have to finish. -[commentators] She wants to continue.
-Please, let me finish. -[commentator 1] She wants to continue.
I'm calling it off. It's over. I'm sorry.
[commentator 1] David Mendoza saying it's over!
And, um, he waved it off.
[sighs]
Fucking doctor come in and tell everybody to stop the fight.
[commentator 1] She's kicked her mouthpiece.
She's not able to continue.
[commentator 2] If she wouldn't have thrown that right--
She was winning the fight, dropped her opponent,
and she was ahead.
And I was like,
"How? How?"
Ladies and gentlemen, after consulting with the ringside physician,
referee David Mendoza has to stop this contest
due to a broken right hand sustained by Christy Martin.
Therefore, the winner by TKO victory,
Dakota "Solid" Stone.
The doctor said, "Christy, remember you spoke
at our physicians' ringside conference a few years ago,
and you said ringside physicians have to protect fighters from themselves."
And I said, "Fuck you. I wasn't talking about me."
[Sherry] Her hand was literally gravel.
I mean, the doctor said that's the worst broken hand she'd ever seen.
[monitor beeping]
[Christy] The doctors told my family surgery would take about two hours
and I would be out.
Um, surgery took seven hours.
When I finally woke up,
like, I knew that something was wrong.
I… I couldn't walk.
I-I couldn't talk. Um…
My vision was really messed up.
And I look at her and immediately go, "She's had a stroke."
Six months after being shot and stabbed.
[Christy] With Sherry, we had decided before the stroke
that she was gonna go her separate way.
We were… We were gonna break up.
We just were different people.
Uh, it just wasn't gonna work.
And you know what? She could have left.
That was… That was the agreement.
But she didn't. She stayed there.
She took care of me and helped me get through the stroke,
and she gave me a lot of support in the courtroom.
[birds chirping]
[man] You ready?
[newswoman] Christy Martin entered the courtroom
prepared for what's been described as the fight of her life.
It's he said, she said, and you know what?
It's not who's right and wrong.
It's who can tell the best story.
[newswoman] Martin claims his boxer wife was the aggressor.
Yes, I talked to his attorney, and that will be their defense.
I was just trying to defend myself. I wasn't even trying to hurt her.
[newswoman] Jim Martin's attorney painted a picture of confusion.
That cocaine made her paranoid. The gun belonged to Christy.
At that point in time,
Christy Martin felt threatened,
her life felt threatened,
and her career felt threatened.
He would look out the corner of his eye to see who was back there.
I just wanted to run up there and beat him.
Christy and I said the whole time leading up to the trial, "Let's get him."
[reporter] Christy Martin laid it all out for the jury,
the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The jury saw the bloody T-shirt Christy used to try to stop the bleeding.
The clothes she wore, complete with knife holes.
Christy said Jim walked into the room a second time
with her pink 9-millimeter gun.
The whole time, I looked straight at Jim.
When he would try to look away from me, I would tell him to look at me.
I wasn't about to let him see me cry.
It's time for me to stand on my own.
It's time for me to show him that I'm strong.
You shot me with my own gun,
basically point-blank.
And guess what, mother****?
I walked out.
I've come to some realization that I got my 50th win when I got up off the floor,
November 23, 2010.
That was not just my 50th win, but that was the biggest win of my life.
[birds chirping]
[judge] If Madam Clerk would please publish our verdict.
[clerk] Yes, Your Honor.
Count one.
We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of attempted second-degree murder.
[newsman] The jury convicted on attempted second degree in one count
and attempted manslaughter on the other.
[Jim] When they announced my sentence, I didn't flinch.
It says in the paper I didn't flinch.
I wasn't gonna show any, um…
weakness.
You know?
She's the worst thing that ever happened in my life
if you would look at where I'm at.
But I lived a pretty good life.
And I was happy.
[chuckles]
You know.
[sniffs]
[cries]
Well, it was my choice.
I done what I said I would do.
I said, "Christy, I'm gonna make you the best woman athlete in the world."
It's probably the only thing I ever said in my life to come true.
[newsman] Jim Martin faces a minimum of 25 years in prison.
His attorney will appeal.
You know, in 25 years, if he lives to be 92, he'll get out.
And honestly,
he's such a son of a bitch, I think he will live to be 92.
If he lives long enough, he'll get out.
And if I live long enough, he won't never walk nowhere.
[exhales sharply]
[Christy] I have a recurring dream that happens here in my granny's house.
And Jim's chasing me,
and chasing me all around the house,
and trying every way I can to get away from him,
so he… he can't stab me.
[uneasy music playing]
I-I guess I wake up before anything happens every time,
but it's this same dream… I've been having the same dream for nine years.
Here.
Again, I…
Why this house,
why I keep having the dream, you know, I don't have an answer for.
I talk to my counselor about that all the time,
like, "When am I gonna get over it?"
And, um…
she says, "Probably never, Christy."
"This is… You have to figure out how to deal with it."
And so, that's what I do. And, I mean, I-I'm getting better.
I mean, we're coming up on, uh, nine years.
Um…
I-I-- I'm gonna be okay. I am okay.
I'm not gonna be okay. I am okay.
[Christy] Thank you for coming.
Thank you for being part of Christy Martin Promotions.
I truly appreciate it.
It means a lot to have guys like you come in here to fight on my show.
[Christy] Finally, I got to the point in my life where I'm gonna be me.
It's kinda like this.
You can either get on or you can get off. It doesn't matter.
I really don't care anymore.
[bell dings]
[gentle music playing]
And then out of nowhere, here comes Lisa Holewyne.
I don't really know what happened, what change, what directionally… [laughs]
The world tilted on its axis?
I'm not really sure.
I don't… I don't know. I think everything came together at the right moment,
and we realized we were a good match.
[Christy] I-I love her without question,
and, um, I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life.
I'm happy in my own skin.
[Lisa] It feels great to have a wife that is Christy.
She's everything that…
makes things right by me.
So what I want is for her to feel full of love and life
and the possibilities of everything else
and not that she's just a fighter.
And I think that she was a fighter and a meal ticket for other people.
I hope it's everlasting, and that, um…
I just hope I can make her as happy as she makes me.
It was very important that Lisa stay here with me this week
to hear my true story
and to see how hard it is.
[Lisa] Hmm?
[Christy] And because of that,
she will have a better understanding of who I am.
[kiss]
[birds chirping]
[gentle music continues]