“Punching power is my main strength. I have to learn not to punch so hard, because it just comes. I’ve got to learn to move around and duck and weave and counter-box. I’m getting there.”

As you can see from this photo spread, Rain Mako is a professional boxer. Oh…you don’t think so? You’re not up with the feminine zeitgeist then, are you? A fighting chick or fashion chic – the 21st Century woman can be either. It happens that Rain Mako is both.

Rain Mako is a professional pug, and a pretty good one, at that. She’s currently the South Pacific light-middleweight champion. You’ll have to excuse the distant look in her eyes. When these photos were taken, she was focused on one thing: bruising up a Kiwi fighter in three days’ time, in defence of her title.

Rain Mako, the “rain of fire”, from Australia by way of New Zealand, was never likely to be your average kid. The genesis of her very name is enough to suggest that she was destined to live for the moment. It came because one of her parents (her father is my guess) happened to be looking out of the window at the moment of her birth. In which case, it could just as easily have been River Mako, or Hail Mako, or Freeway Mako, or Lake Mako, or…you get the picture. And so with her life. She’s just as comfortable on the catwalk as she is in the squared circle, and sees no reason to choose one over the other. She’s already cashed in on the cheesecake, doing sexy spreads for a number of magazines to keep her blokey following happy.

She’d rather punch than pout for pay, but they’re not totally opposed in her mind. Rain’s used to living her life in a way that expresses what she is. “I consider myself to be fairly relaxed and easy-going. I don’t believe there should be a fine line between things.

“I’m pretty sure that when people hear of me as a model boxer they probably think I fight like a pretty-girl and don’t want to get into it. But I go hard. I don’t care if I get bruised up. If I have to take a week off from modelling, fine. I want them to see that I’m a woman who can do both. Women can box. They’re just as capable of learning as the men. Everyone should go to a boxing match and look at the talent rather than judge the people or gender.

“I’ve earned respect from the people in the boxing world. They do enjoy coming to watch me fight. They often ask me when I’m fighting again. My name, thankfully, is recognised because I’ve worked hard and I can box.”

Of course, men still walk around this porcupine called women’s boxing, not quite knowing how to pick it up. It’s enough having women boxing at all, let alone one with the wherewithal to weigh into the fashion stakes. Powerful voices in boxing’s establishment such as Jeff Fenech and Arthur Tunstall have protested that pugilism is no place for pulchritude. Now tennis! There’s a sport where a bloke can perv without cross purposes. The clobber is prim and skimpy – like a school uniform. Even injured or defeated at Wimbledon, Barbara Schett and Anna Kournikova were responsible for ten thousand words a minute of pure Fleet Street drivel – or is that dribble?

Breaking stereotypes is a tough challenge, but Rain Mako’s a tough woman. She’s no stranger to the rough-and-tumble of physical contact sports. Back in New Zealand, Rain played Rugby for Canterbury, as a centre. “I always played contact sports. I just thought ‘two girls in the ring, fit, aggressive’, I thought I could do that. In Rugby Union I used to like to run through the girls and just get in there and do what I’m not afraid of doing.”

But she’d never done anything martial. Not even close. Not even boxacise. “I was just basically…sporty spice, if you will. In my first fight, I wasn’t sure what I was in for, but I knew from the first round. I sat down between rounds and thought ‘okay, this is what I’m in for.’ But the thing is, when I’m in a fight, and I’m getting hit, I get stronger, because no-one is going to hit me and get away with it. That’s how I fight.”

Rain wouldn’t mind making space in her busy schedule for a Hollywood role. “I don’t know why I can’t do everything. A lot of people see that Lara Croft movie and they laugh and think of me.” But her immediate concern is sponsorship. According to James Nisos, her Manager, the porcupine has the sponsors baffled as well, despite the fact that sleek and tough is the image of choice for the 21st Century motor vehicle.  For the record, her favourite car is the Lamborghini Diablo. “I’ll be driving around in one of those one day”, she says with a look that’s about 12,000 kilometres away.

It’s there, on American shores, that she’ll get the chance to earn sizeable greenbacks taking on one of a universe of boxing chicks, which includes a galaxy of daunting daughters of famous fathers, with names like Ali, Frazier, Foreman and Duran.

After that? She wants to be “still involved. As one of the women who made it in boxing, who won a world title. I’m staying in the sport. I’ll get women involved and bring the sport on in Australia” Will she have anything to work with? Kostya and Mrs Tszyu keep making boys.  We’ve seen The Man. Is The Woman in the making? A Mistress Blaster? A Rose by any other name?  We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Right now, she’s fixed on making Rain.

Published in Inside Sport, August 2001