Boxing: Ginithan’s journey takes a new direction

Samantha Ginithan came to boxing late, and vice versa. For the past two years, she’s been making up for lost time in a highly successful way.

The process continues.

On Friday in suburban Atlanta, the Las Cruces southpaw is scheduled to make her professional debut (with an asterisk) against Kayla Williams of Andover, Kansas.

Asterisk explained: From March 28 through Aug. 2, Ginithan competed professionally in the Team Combat League, fighting one-round bouts. The two-time Golden Gloves national champion compiled a 9-2 record in the TCL and was a finalist for Rookie of the Year honors.

The TCL season concluded, Ginithan believes she’s ready for the more traditional form of professional boxing. Her four-round bout against Krol is part of an all-female card, headlined by a super featherweight world title fight between champion Alycia Baumgardner and Belgian veteran Delfine Persoon.

Ginithan, having turned 34 in August, is working with Nelson Lopez Jr., the promoter of Friday’s card, as she launches her post-TCL career.

“Being that I’m a little bit older,” she said during a phone interview, “I think we both have the idea of making sure I get as many fights as possible within a reasonable time.”

Originally from Las Cruces, Ginithan spent her teen years in Texas, where she played high school basketball. Returning to New Mexico, she continued her basketball career at College of the Southwest in Hobbs. Post-college, she got into martial arts, competing in MMA as an amateur.

She then began training as a boxer with Las Cruces’ Rene Carrasco. Almost out of nowhere, she won two Golden Gloves national titles and a USA Boxing national championship. She never lost an amateur bout.

At the invitation of fellow Las Crucen and former world professional champion Austin Trout, Ginithan signed on with the TCL.

As a former basketball player, she was no stranger to the team concept. But team boxing, she said, was a challenge.

“You wanted to be excited for (teammates),” she said, “But you wanted to also maintain your composure for your rounds. You don’t want to just be on the sidelines going up and down like a roller coaster with your emotions.

“… My thing was to maintain levelheadedness, but it was not always a thing that happened.”

Ginithan reeled off seven straight one-round victories with Trout’s Houston Hitmen, then was drafted by the Miami Stealth after the Hitmen failed to make the TCL playoffs.

She split four bouts for the Stealth, tasting defeat in a boxing ring for the first time.

The urgency of the TCL’s one-round bouts, Ginithan believes, will serve her well on Friday and beyond. Her four-rounder against Williams, a late replacement for Poland’s Martyna Krol, presents an urgency of another kind, given that the rounds will be two minutes in duration; TCL’s rounds last three minutes.

“In the TCL, it’s one round, and you have to make sure everything looks dominant in your round, so it’s go, go, go,” she said. “I feel like a two-minute round would be good for me in women’s pro boxing.”

Until Wednesday, Ginithan was expecting to face Krol, also a Team Combat League fighter and someone which whom Ginithan was familiar.

Now, it’s Williams, an unknown quantity. Boxrec.com lists her as a kickboxer with a 2-0 record and with no professional boxing experience.

Ginithan said the fight was contracted at 133 pounds but has been adjusted. She expects to weigh in at about 140 pounds. She competed at 147 in her Team Combat League bouts.

She said she’s been invited to fight in the TCL next year but hasn’t decided if she will: “It just depends on how this solo boxing career develops.”

Though she’s living in Houston, training at Bobby Benton’s Main Street Gym under the tutelage of Darnell Pierce, Ginithan retains strong ties to Las Cruces.

When interviewed, she’d just returned from Cruces, where she’d attended a birthday party for amateur champion Ariana Carrasco, Rene’s daughter, and did some sparring.

“We definitely stay in contact,” Ginithan said. “They’re definitely a foundation for me.”