Given there’s only so many times Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano can share a boxing ring and stand toe to toe, it is only right that new rivalries start to form in the women’s game and do some of the heavy lifting.
One such rivalry involves Alycia Baumgardner and Caroline Dubois, two world champions who compete in different weight classes yet are close enough, both in weight and ambition, to have emerged as possible foes.
The only question, it would seem, is whether they meet now or in the future. Ask Dubois, and she will say now, it must happen now. Ask Baumgardner, on the other hand, and the answer will be slightly different.
After all, while they are close in weight, they are anything but close in terms of experience and achievement. Baumgardner, the IBF and WBO super-featherweight champion, won her first world title back in 2021, when stopping Terri Harper in four rounds, while Dubois, the WBC lightweight champion, won her belt only last year. Although both know what it takes to win a world title, they find themselves at different stages on the same journey, Dubois having won just one belt and Baumgardner having won and defended a few.
That said, when it comes to a boxing rivalry, there is often no time like the present. If the time feels right, it is right, and Baumgardner-Dubois would appear to possess all the ingredients. In Baumgardner, you have the brash American whose ego grew wings when she defeated her first proper rival, Mikaela Mayer, in a nasty, spiteful grudge match in 2022. In Dubois, meanwhile, you have the young upstart from the UK, someone whose brother, Daniel, briefly held the IBF heavyweight title but whose own career has the potential to be even better.
Added to this, there is between Baumgardner and Dubois a simmering animosity, no better exemplified than when they shared a press conference ahead of their most recent fights. That day, in Miami, Baumgardner admonished Dubois for speaking out of turn and calling her out, labelling her “a pup”. However, Dubois, from her position below Baumgardner on the stage, continued to bark. She insisted she not only had every right to chase Baumgardner, but that she would produce a more impressive performance than the “Bomb” when they shared the same bill that weekend.
As it turned out, she wasn’t wrong either. Whereas Baumgardner struggled to shine in a 12-round decision victory over Leila Beaudoin, Dubois had a lot more fun beating Camilla Panatta over 10.
Still, that’s not to say that their last outings will have any bearing on a future fight between them. Boxing, after all, tends to be a lot more complicated than that. Besides, rivalries like Baumgardner-Dubois are less about past form, or even titles held, and more about which of the two fighters can hold it together, emotionally, on the night.
In the case of this fight, there’s certainly a lot of emotion. That was true back in December, when they clashed at a press conference, and it is no less true now with a new year having got underway.
“Dubois, the b**** is not on my level,” Baumgardner said in a recent video posted on social media. “I’ve already said that. She’s a puppy. She needs me, Alycia, to sell a fight. At the end of the day, they want me. I don’t need her.
“I’m also still at 130 [pounds]. So when you’re doing all that yapping, and all that talking s***, just know that you need to do what you need to do at 135. The same way I won my championship fight against Terri Harper, and then went to London and beat Mikaela Mayer to become the unified champion, and then fought again to become undisputed… b****, you ain’t even doing that. Don’t even mention my name, b****, because you’re not on my level. But what I will do, though, is put a dog in her place.”
It's not exactly pretty – neither the language used nor the sentiment expressed – but then it rarely is when a grudge match is real. Seemingly, what Dubois considers ambition, Baumgardner considers disrespect.
“Rent freeeeeee!!!” Dubois posted in response to Baumgardner’s video. “I’m glad you people are seeing through this absolute b*******. If you don’t want to fight me hunny bunny, just say that.”
The suggestion, both from Dubois and others, is that Baumgardner, 17-1 (7 KOs), would prefer to target more lucrative fights against bigger names. One of the names mentioned, as bizarre as it might sound, is Claressa Shields, the multi-weight world champion who currently competes as a 175-pound heavyweight. That fight, according to Dubois, is not so much a case of Baumgardner challenging herself and taking a giant risk, but rather an example of a fighter hiding behind perceived risk to avoid tougher tests in their natural habitat.
“The only reason Alycia Baumgardner would rather jump up three divisions and fight Claressa Shields is because it's a win-win,” wrote Dubois, 12-0-1 (5 KOs). “If she gets her ass handed to her, which she will, she can always say, ‘Well, I dared to be great but was just too small.’
“Lose against me, there’s no excuse.”
In agreement with this point of view is Shields, the target. She wrote in a post of her own that Baumgardner, a “one-division champ”, should think twice before talking about her. She then told Dubois to “get her”, telling the British boxer to “whoop that trick”.
However it ultimately shakes out, there can be no denying the passion and intensity of this particular rivalry. Unlike Taylor-Serrano, which was primarily fuelled by respect and the weight of both boxers’ accomplishments, this one between Baumgardner and Dubois is running on mutual dislike first and foremost. It won’t make you proud the same way Taylor and Serrano made you proud, but the language and look of the typical grudge match is, for the general public, a much easier one to understand. With these two, Baumgardner and Dubois, you know exactly what they want – or perhaps don’t want – and know, should it happen, exactly what you will get. You also know it makes sense.
