Olivia Meyer finally found a fight. After a year on the ISU Boxing Club, Meyer and her coach Jon Swanson found another female boxer for her to compete against. 

Meyer, the only female boxer in the club, had no experience in boxing as a freshman last year. After discovering the club at Destination Iowa State, she decided to give it a shot.

Meyer spent the year in extensive training but had no luck last spring in finding a match against a female boxer in her weight class.   

At long last, Meyer earned her first fight on Sept. 28 against Damarise Rodriguez, member of the Muscatine County Boxing Club. The match was held in Omaha, Neb., at Victory Boxing Club, where Meyer earned her first official victory.

Meyer entered the match with some nerves but focused on staying calm throughout the fight.

“I had heard that Demarise had a couple of fights on her, so it made me nervous, but I just got in there,” Meyer said. “A lot of people in their first fights like to lose their cool and their technique kind of gives out. You just have to remain cool and calm throughout the entire match and feed off the opponent.”

The men on the team have had to eliminate any and all fears of entering the ring with a female in order to help prepare Meyer for her matches.

“The guys didn’t want to hit her at first and weren’t used to working with a woman, so eventually they had to realize that she was going to get into the ring with a woman who was going to come after her,” said ISU coach Jon Swanson.

After entering the ring with Meyer, the men soon understood they had another problem to worry about beside just hitting a woman, potentially a bigger problem.

“None of the guys wanted to hit a girl, but now it was going to be a girl’s going to beat you up,” Swanson said. “To a guy, one thing is you don’t want to hit a girl, but getting beat up by a girl might be worse.”

When sparring with Meyer for the first time, many of the men didn’t know what to expect. They had to learn to adjust to her level of fighting.

“You have to gauge how aggressive to be when getting into the ring with her the first couple of times,” said Cody Campbell, senior and club president. “It’s gotten to the point where she’s pretty good and she’s comfortable where you can just work your moves at a pace that you want.”

Meyer has refused to back down from any challenges presented to her and has no fears as to whom she fights against.

“You’re stepping up to the challenge of me, so I’m going to accept this challenge and take you on,” Meyer said. “I don’t care what gender you are, what age you are, or what your background is as long as you get in there and give it all you got.”

Meyer has been provided the opportunity to train and spar every practice with all male boxers.

“I have an advantage over other female competitors because I am boxing with all males, most who are experienced and who teach me a lot of their techniques,” Meyer said.

As far as respect goes, the rest of the members of the club and Swanson view Meyer as just another boxer — one of them. 

Meyer’s next match has been scheduled for Oct. 19 against an unknown boxer from Muscatine.