Melissa St. Vil Sets The Record Straight
By Felipe Leon
The story is as old as boxing.
Promoter needs to sell tickets so they announce their star in a fight facing another big name but the other big name never gets contacted and is never told. Come fight night, an injury is invented or any other kind of story for the reason the opponent didn’t make it. With the advent of the internet and the fact news travels at the speed of light, one would think this type of con could not exist anymore.
In boxing everything is possible.
It just happened to current WBC Silver super featherweight champion Melissa St. Vil (9-2-4) of New York by way of Haiti. St. Vil was announced to challenge current WBC 130lb champion Eva Wahlstrom (19-0-1, 3KO) in Finland on Saturday, May 6th, but the diminutive “Little Mike Tyson” knew nothing of the sort.
“How can I cancel a fight that me and my team had no clue about,” St. Vil said exclusively on the 2-Min Rd., the all-female boxing podcast on the Leave It in the Ring Network. “As long as I have been boxing and everybody in the boxing world that knows me, knows Melissa St. Vil never backs out of a fight. Unfortunately here I had no clue about this fight. One day I was on my Facebook and my home girl sent me a message about me possibly fighting.”
St. Vil figured they had the wrong Melissa.
“I know I am not the only Melissa but then I saw my last name and I asked myself where they were getting this false information,” she continued. “I had no clue about this, this fight.”
St. Vil is managed by Luigi Olcese, the well-known representative who along with St. Vil also helms the careers of IBF featherweight champion Jennifer Han, former champs Maureen Shea and Alicia Ashley among others. He also manages St. Vil.
“Where did they get their info from?” St. Vil asked. “I sent the poster to Luigi and I asked him, ‘where does this come from?’ That is the crazy part. I had no clue about this fight. There is some evil person out there using my name. There are no stories but I am here to tell the whole world this information is false. If there is anybody looking to book a fight with me, contact Luigi, nobody else.”
St. Vil currently holds the WBC Silver title but she makes it a point to stress nobody from the organization has contacted her regarding this contest. “Yes, I am the silver champion. I have seen Mauricio (Sulaiman, president of the WBC) at the Golden Gloves in New York just a couple of days ago. This wasn’t even brought up. I saw him and Jill (Diamond, WBC Female Boxing executive).”
Return to Haiti
The 33-year-old is known to travel throughout the tri-state area in and around her hometown of New York City to support female boxing. There is hardly a female bout in that area that doesn’t find St. Vil in the confines of the venue. This past month’s WBO bantamweight title between Amanda Serrano and Dahiana Santana at the Barlclays Center in Brooklyn was no exception. For this fight St. Vil had a little bit of a vested interest since Santana hails from the Dominican Republic, sister country of her own of Haiti.
“You know what was so funny? I did go to the fight and ran into the girl she fought from the Dominican Republic,” St. Vil said of Santana. “She told she had not fought in four years. She told me that she only had three weeks to train and they stuck her in a sauna to lose the weight.”
Santana the day of the weigh in was four pounds over the bantamweight limit of 118 pounds. The title was only available for Serrano to win, which she did with an 8th round TKO on Showtime Extreme. Santana has actually fought six times in the last four years prior to her fight against Serrano going 4-2 with wins over Claudia Andrea Lopez, Rocio De Leon, Francia Elena Bravo and Diana Garcia while dropping decisions to Anahi Esther Sanchez and Eva Wahlstrom.
“The fight was ok, the opponent looked out of shape,” St. Vil said of the actual fight. “The opponent just looked run down. I think the girl had no condition at all, she was winging her punches, the girl looked tired and out of shape. She looked like she wanted to quit a lot of times in the corner. I was watching her in the corner and it looked she wanted to give up but she gave a good fight. I give her a plus for that.”
It wouldn’t be a surprise we see St. Vil soon over the airwaves with her exciting all out style.
“I think it is a wonderful thing because we could have been on TV a long time ago,” she stated. “The fact we are getting a chance on TV and letting the world see what we can do is a wonderful thing. We should have been on TV. What were the TV people waiting for? Every time you go to a boxing show you see women’s fight on the bout sheet, everybody is waiting for the girls to come out. We are more exciting than the guys. We come out fierce, we bring that excitement. I feel that it has been our time to be on TV so I am happy.”
St. Vil is coming off a win in home country of Haiti this past March over Mexican Jessica Gonzalez. Gonzalez formerly had held the interim WBC bantamweight title. St. Vil defended her Silver title for the first time with a technical decision in the fifth of a scheduled ten.
“It was weird because they ended up taking a point from me when the girl head butted me,” St. Vil explained. “She is taller than me so that means she had to come down on me. If you see where she got cut it was way on top. They said it was a WBC rule and everything so being that she head butted me and she was the one bleeding, then they ended up taking a point from me. It is the rules so I can’t really be disappointed. I am happy that I still hold my belt. It is boxing, I didn’t let it bother me too much.”
After developing nearly her whole career in the United States, the fight marked the second time in a row St. Vil went back to Haiti to perform. “It is always exciting to go back to Haiti and fight. My family is from there and before I used to go there every summer. Haiti is my second home and I still have family and friends over there. When I go to Haiti to fight I am always excited because I am their first female champ. It’s a good feeling.”
TV appearance
Recently St. Vil has dabbled in a bit more than boxing. She actually had the opportunity to be part of “Spartan Race” a reality TV show for NBC, which will be broadcasting on the network on Monday, June 12th. It all began when St. Vil and fellow fighter Alicia Ashley as well as two other athletes decided to submit an audition tape. Unfortunately for the team it was not chosen for the competition but the producers saw enough in St. Vil to ask her to join another set of competitors.
“I went to Atlanta to do it, my team are called the ‘Sparring Spartans’,” she explained. “It was five of us, three MMA people and one body builder. It was a whole bunch of teams, we just competed against each other and did a whole bunch of obstacle courses. It was a lot of fun because it was a challenge. I just breezed through it. I am very proud of myself because I went through this whole thing. Going through the mud and climbing ropes. I was just like ‘Rambo’ so it was very exciting. I can’t say much but you can see it on June 12th.”
As far as her boxing career, big things are in store for 2017 including perhaps a world title berth. “That might be coming up so I stay ready. I am staying prepared. I don’t have a date at the moment but I am having a meeting with my team soon and I will be having something soon.”
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To listen to the interview in its entirety, please visit BlogTalkRadio.com/LeaveItinthering