A new star on the female boxing scene

Roy Jones Jr. on Ikram Kerwat: “I want to make her the female version of what Roy Jones once was!”

By Wolfgang Schiffbauer

“I was walking down the hall and she just came up to me, ‘hey, hey, hey, Roy Jones’ – and I was like, who is this? She asked me what I was doing tomorrow. I’m doing nothing tomorrow. So she’s like ‘we’re going to the gym tomorrow’. What gym? ‘There’s a gym in this hotel. We go tomorrow.’ And that was it.”

The legendary future Hall-of-Famer, four-division world champion and now-coach Roy Jones Jr. smiles when he tells the absurd story of how he met his lone female prodigy Ikram Kerwat at a WBC convention in Miami a couple of years back. The 34-year-old Kerwat from Tunisia, who now lives and boxes out of Berlin, Germany, took a brash chance – and it turned out to be the best decision of her career. “Of course I was kinda nervous”, she said. “But I knew something was going on here, I knew I had to do something and I had to do it this way. He wasn’t gonna punch me or anything. He would say yes or no. And he said yes.”

The two met in the hotel gym the next morning and trained together. With her intensity and her willingness to improve and to learn, Kerwat instantly won Jones over. “You never know and I don’t like to judge people without giving them an opportunity first,” Jones, now 49 years old, explained. “She was brave enough to ask, so I was going to see what she got. She was strong, she was serious about what she was doing.” To which Kerwat quickly added: “I asked him right away: ‘When is my next fight?’ He looked at me like I was crazy.”

Since that chance-encounter in Miami, the two forged a special bond and became close friends. They have agreed to a longtime contract and both have met each other’s families on multiple occasions. “It is a real honor to work with him and to have made a great friend in him,” said Ikram proudly and jokingly added: “I probably talk to his wife more often than he does when we are in training camp.”

Kerwat and Jones were originally preparing for a fight on September 29 on the undercard of the Manuel Charr-Fres Oquendo WBA world heavyweight title fight in Cologne, Germany. But when Charr tested positive for steroids, the whole show fell apart. “This has not happened for the first time,” Kerwat shrugged.

“We’ll just look forward and adapt.” Or as Jones put it: “In boxing, you have to be flexible.” Still, the two continued to train as a guest of former world title challenger Maurice Weber at the state-of-the-art Sturm Box-Gym in Cologne – and their work paid off.

“In the short period of time we had in Germany, we made more progress than in all our time together before”, Jones said. “She now realizes that it is time to take the old book, put it on the side and open up a new book. She was always a hard worker, gave it her all in each and every training session. But it is not only about working hard, it’s about working smart. Hard work that is not correct does not help you. You need to work hard and smart, hard and smart. She’s getting that now.”

“To me, he’s a boxing guru,” Kerwat said with shining eyes. “We have a saying that once you become a master in one discipline, you become a student in another. But he’s not only a master boxer, he’s already a master trainer. I literally learn new things every day. This is a huge deal for me.”

The Tunisian-born Kerwat, who has fought three times under the tutelage of Jones, currently has a professional record of 9 wins with only one defeat and five big wins by way of knockout. She dreamed about becoming a boxer even when she was a little girl. But at first, her family did not let her start boxing.

“I actually did Judo. But one day I told my mum that I wanted to quit and take up boxing instead. We argued a lot. I finally started late, at the age of 25. We had moved to Germany by then. I knew from the first day, though, that I did not want to be an amateur fighter. I only had three fights before I went straight to the professionals. I wanted the big stage – and now I’m training for a world title fight with the all-time pound-for-pound champion in my corner. How about that?”

Her world title opportunity will finally arrive on December 15 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, roughly two months after it was originally scheduled. And while no exact location has been set, the contracts have been signed for a fight against Anahi Sanchez from Argentina for the vacant WBA female super lightweight crown. Jones and Kerwat have been working closely with Ulrich Bittner in order to realize the fight. “This is the first time we are working together and we have not made plans for the future, but Ulrich is a man of his word, a visionary, and he is doing all he can do to make this possible for me. He is very dedicated and I am really thankful to have him in our corner,” Kerwat explained. “I’m really looking forward to the fight and I’m glad we could make the fight in Germany. I cannot wait to step into the ring again.”

To which the legendary Roy Jones added: “With the help of God, I want to guide her to all the titles. You have to have a plan for everybody and with her, I’m going to make Ikram the female version of what Roy Jones once was.”