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07/12/2006 Archived Entry: "Jane Couch & Tex Woodward - Unleashed!"
Jane Couch & Tex Woodward - Unleashed!
By Jill Diamond
WBC Female Boxing Committee
Jill: How did you two meet?
Tex: I first met Jane when I held a weekend coaching course for female boxers in my gym in 1993. With hindsight, the strangest thing about that meeting was that Jane made no impression on me, as a personality or a boxer, that must have been a first and a last for her. I however, I was told later, made a great impression on Jane, she said, “I went for a boxing seminar for women near Bristol one weekend. I’ll never forget that. I had been whacking away at a maize ball in the gym there, when along comes this old bloke, the coach, he catches the ball and swings it straight at my face. He scored a direct hit, grinning all over his gob he says, ““You are supposed to move your head Curly””. Move my head! I nearly moved his head, right off his f------ shoulders! I dashed out of the gym, cursing and swearing until I had cooled down.”
My first real memory of Jane was when I went to Wigan, in Jane’s home county of Lancashire, as the W.I.B.F’s Official in charge of a female boxing show. In the local burger bar I saw a gypsy looking girl stuffing food down her throat as if she was starving - she was, she had been making the weight”. I said, “If you are boxing tonight I should go easy on that food”. Luckily I didn’t hear her reply.
Later that night I was a little more popular when I presented her with her trophy for beating Kalpna Shah, a London police woman. Fortunately I still wasn’t invited to the after night celebrations, which I later learnt lasted two days, and presumably nights.
Fate wasn’t so kind to me after Jane beat Fosteres Joseph, a tough ex-kick-boxer, on points, in Jane’s hometown of Fleetwood, Lancashire. The fight had been a hectic brawl with Jane’s determination and flailing arms, surprisingly outworking the more experienced Fosteres to win on points.
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