For a good chunk of the boxing fanbase, this past weekend was considered a light one on the sport’s schedule. Competing with a weekend of playoff football isn’t in the best interest of promoters in North America, generally speaking. Two of the sport’s major broadcasters in the United States aired three events, but many continued to look ahead rather than focus on the action in the ring that week.

If they did, not only were they dismissing a title unification bout between Kim Clavel and Yesica Nery Plata on ESPN+ and FITE in Canada, but would ultimately miss out on a fight that will certainly find itself on “best of” lists come late December. 

Inside the confines of Place Bell in Laval, Quebec, Clavel-Nery Plata was anything but an afterthought on the calendar. By the time Clavel walked out to the sounds of “Where The Streets Have No Name,” Lucian Bute’s old ring walk tune, with Bute following behind her, the energy of the crowd was that of a collection of people who were at an event they’d looked forward to for a long time. 

There were good reasons for them to feel that way, too. For one, Clavel has become a beloved figure in Canadian boxing, particularly in her home province of Quebec. Clavel received international acclaim, including the Pat Tillman Award at the ESPYs and a spot on TIME Magazine’s Next Generation leaders list for her work in the COVID-19 unit as a nurse, a job she voluntarily balanced with a career as, at that point, a top light flyweight contender. The road she took to ultimately winning the WBC’s version of her divisional title was, of course, stifled by the very disease she had committed to fighting in her other career, both in terms of its role in complicating scheduling bouts, but also more directly. After two years of navigating protocols, fighting at a resort in Mexico and in empty or partially empty Canadian venues as the country held firm on protocols related to mass gatherings, her eventual title-winning effort over Yesenia Gomez in July was delayed when Clavel contracted COVID-19.

In her first defense, as Canada’s lone women’s world champion as of bell time, Clavel and her promoter chose to immediately target a unification bout. However, the scheduling of that too wouldn’t be without barriers. The bout was originally scheduled for December 1 of last year, meaning Clavel and her conditioning coach Frederik Laberge had planned to peak fitness-wise on that day. But two weeks prior, Clavel was noticing she was moving in the opposite direction. A case of the flu rendered her asleep for 16 hours a day, and at one point, it was bad enough that even a trained medical professional like herself was concerned. 

“Looking back, I still can't believe how sick I was,” Clavel wrote in a column for RDS.ca in December. “My trainer Danielle Bouchard and my adviser Stephan Larouche even took turns during one night because my condition was so worrying. I had a high fever and nothing was able to bring my temperature down.”

Clevel recovered, and although she didn’t feel great upon her return, was committed to finishing a four-week camp and facing Nery Plata on January 13 instead. 

A rescheduling of a bout was minor for Nery Plata in comparison to the difficulties she’s had throughout her boxing life, too. The daughter of a boxer, her father Oscar spent his nights in the gym, sparring greats such as Marco Antonio Barrera and Ricardo Lopez. Yesica instantly fell in love with the sport, and pestered her father until he would train her. First, she learned how to skip, then, her father fought a pair of focus pads for her to hit when he came home. Life for Nery Plata wasn’t easy then, just as it isn’t now, and from a young age she worked at the Mercado de Jamaica in Mexico City, tending to vegetable stands and handling odd jobs. Her father wasn’t entirely convinced of endorsing her boxing dreams until one day out of necessity, the 9-year old Yesica boxed a boy and handled herself so well that he agreed. These days, Oscar is still her trainer, but now there are enough women boxing in Mexico City that she says she can spar someone new every day of the week if she wanted. 

In some ways the dynamics changed very little, even as her professional career blossomed. While women can often have a shorter path to a world title shot due to fewer participants per weight class, Nery Plata waited 29 fights before fighting for a legitimate world title (she took part in two interim title bouts prior, winning one). Fighting exclusively in Mexico, she was able to fight often, but not for much. She estimates that she makes “twelve times less” than fighters of her caliber for the same number of rounds. Like Clavel, she too had a role to fulfill as an essential worker during the deepest depths of the pandemic, continuing to work as a breakfast deliverer at the Mercado de Jamaica in Mexico City—even after defeating the legendary Yesica Yolana Bopp for the WBA title in March of last year. 

“It's very sad, because in women's boxing, the discrimination still continues. I really think that if it had been a man that achieved it, it would have been different, and I'll tell you, it's the same in Mexico, it's not really recognized the way it should be. We are still the little bean in the rice, they still push us aside,” Nery Plata told Canadian journalist Marie-Eve Albert on her 120 Secondes podcast last November. "There have been two deaths of Mexican fighters in the last year, so when people say ‘women's boxing, it's not the same,’ I don't see the logic in that."

What transpired in the ring last Friday night was a fight that should have not only met the standards of even the fiercest detractors, but exceeded them, a battle befitting the world title unification stakes. A fight that looked like what we hope a unification bout will look like. 

For ten two-minute rounds (two rounds and sixteen minutes shy of the duration Nery Plata would prefer to fight), Clavel and Nery Plata exchanged brutal combinations. In the early rounds, it appeared as though Clavel’s heavy sequences would overwhelm Nery Plata, but close to the midway point of the fight, it was Nery Plata’s jab and piercing counters that were the most eye-catching shots. By the seventh round, Clavel’s eye was swollen and her facial features outlined with blood. At no point did either fighter’s punch output dip, the action merely seesawed in terms of who was getting the better of exchanges. 

Oscar Nery would say after the bout that he intentionally aimed for his daughter to weigh-in light, coming in a touch above 104 pounds, in order to maximize her speed. Whether it was the handful of pounds that made the difference or not, Nery Plata was a touch quicker when she needed to be, able to square up with Clavel and beat her to the punch just often enough. 

Even seconds after the final bell, the women were still throwing punches, with Clavel taking one final right hand when the fight had already ended. Rather that reacting in outrage, she smiled and hugged Nery Plata, as if to acknowledge that they’d been throwing non-stop for 20 minutes and it would have been hard to hit the brakes all of the sudden. 

As the scores were being read, there was tension in the air not just because the Quebec crowd was unsure of their heroine’s chances on the scorecards, but perhaps fearful of the accuracy of the scores that would be turned in. Earlier in the night, Clavel’s stablemate Marie-Pier Houle fought another Mexican visitor, Marisol Moreno. Houle was given the decision, which most observers seemed to disagree with, but the scorecards—particularly the 80-72 one in her favor—prompted understandable outrage, even amongst those rooting for Houle. 

In the case of Clavel-Plata however, the scorecards did the fight justice. Nery Plata was announced the winner by scores of 96-94 and 97-93 twice, an accurate, obviously impartial evaluation of how the fight played out. 

Nery Plata is now Mexico’s newest unified world champion, with both her hardware and now a brutal, classic fight on her resume to bolster her argument for equality. "Some promoters use the two-minute round excuse to pay us less. But it is absurd, because we train as hard, and we get hit as much (as men)," she told 120 Secondes prior to the bout. Whether she will be received differently back home, one day revered the way her heroes Jackie Nava and Ana Maria Torres are, remains to be seen.

In Clavel’s case, the announced 4126 fans who came primarily to see her gave her a standing ovation even in a losing effort. Her promoter, Yvon Michel, likened the night to Jean Pascal’s losing effort against Carl Froch, a night in which a fighter simply is bested by a fellow champion, but sees their stock rise nonetheless. 

In the moment at least, it was cold comfort for Clavel—and not the kind of cold comfort she’d hoped to be indulging in. 

"I wanted to be victorious and go have a beer, but I'm going to go home and put myself on ice instead," said Clavel at the post-fight press conference. "I fought with my heart and my guts, but maybe a little too much. I know that I am capable of better."

**Translations provided by Marie-Eve Albert**

Corey Erdman is a boxing writer and commentator based in Toronto, ON, Canada. Follow him on Twitter @corey_erdman