Jackie Kallen - Catching up with 'The First Lady of Boxing'

My grandma always said it was impolite to ask a woman her age. But Jackie Kallen, herself a grandmother of five, not only has no problem revealing her vintage, but is quick to correct me when I think she’s younger than she really is.

“No, I’m 75,” she says. “I’ll be 76 in April.”

Many fans will need little introduction to the woman popularly known as “The First Lady of Boxing”, but we are not discussing a retrospective of a management career that most famously peaked in the 1990s with James Toney. No, Kallen is keen to discuss her current projects and a working life that she insists remains very much in the present and future tenses.

“I don’t even know what the mandatory retirement age is, because I’ve always been self-employed and never even thought about it,” says Kallen. “I’m just moving forward, doing what I love. I won’t call it quits until I can no longer function. Yes, I’m 75, but I don’t feel it, and Lord knows I don’t act it.”

And how does a 75-year-old act?

Well, they don’t usually criss-cross the United States pursuing a variety of vocations, even starting a new career a decade after most Americans have retired (that mandatory retirement age, if Kallen is interested, is 65).

In addition to boxing management, in which she remains active, Kallen also hosts a podcast, conducts motivational speaking, is the subject of an authorised biography due for imminent release and has now branched out into movie production.

When I speak with Kallen, she is in Los Angeles enjoying a rare day off from her latest role, as producer for an independent film called The Legend Of Jack And Diane.

“I got involved because the writer-director is a friend of mine, Bruce Bellochi,” she says. “He used to be a fighter back in the day; we go way back. [Bellochi was a journeyman heavyweight who fought the likes of David Tua, Ed Mahone and Charles Shufford].

“He said ‘I’d like you to get involved’; I said I’d love to. It’s another new process, going from journalism to boxing to the film industry. I’ve enjoyed the process of putting together a feature film from the ground up.”

While The Legend Of Jack And Diane represents Kallen’s producer debut, it’s far from her first experience in film. Her life story (to that point) was told in the 2004 feature Against The Ropes, albeit with lashings of artistic licence.

“I wasn’t pleased with it,” says Kallen of the movie in which she is portrayed by Meg Ryan.  “It had very little bearing on real life.”

And what’s Jack And Diane about?

“It’s a female revenge thriller,” answers Kallen.

How appropriate.

Kallen, after all, revolutionised the female presence in boxing. She was a pioneering – and certainly the highest-profile – female boxing manager, taking James Toney to his first world title.

Her introduction to boxing came when she parlayed a career in sports and showbiz journalism into a publicist role for Tommy Hearns and other Kronk fighters in her Detroit hometown in the late 1980s.

Once she’d learned the ropes of a sport she’d previously held no expertise in – “I knew boxing in terms of what it was, and thought it was interesting, but I’d never been to a real fight until I met Tommy [Hearns]. Seeing him fight left me hooked and I was all about boxing from that day forward.” – she transitioned to management.

Until Toney levelled Michael Nunn in the 11th round of their 1991 IBF middleweight title duel, Kallen had struggled to be taken seriously.

“People underestimated me, thought I didn’t know what I was talking about, or I was a front for someone else,” she says. “They couldn’t figure it out – a suburban woman with a family, hanging out in these grimy gyms.

“But I broke the barriers. going into locker rooms for contracts, speaking at press conferences. It took them a while, but eventually they realised I saw it as a business.”

And it’s a business Kallen is still in, more than 30 years on from Toney’s breakout night. She currently has three boxers on her own books – 16-0-1 super-lightweight Mykquan Willaims, 2-0 super-featherweight Sam Rizzo and an upcoming debutant she can’t yet name – as well as a consultant role in a new company, Eruption Boxing & MMA Management.

The lure of Eruption was that it is spearheaded by another ambitious woman, Gwen Legge, a native New Yorker now based in Orange, California.

“I’ve known Gwen for a while,” says Kallen. “She’s an aspiring boxing manager and she sought me out, so I decided I wanted to mentor her. She’s very bright and likeable. I’m her No. 1 fan and supporter. She’s a fresh face on the scene and I think fighters like new faces, to not be one of a hundred fighters [on a manager’s books]. She has a great shot.”

Eruption is a newcomer to management , though the brand was launched as an apparel company back in 2009, producing kit for extreme sports, including boxing and martial arts. But, as it did for so many people, the coronavirus pandemic sparked a rethink.

“We were very involved in boxing and MMA, including making custom gloves for high-end boutique boxing and fitness gyms,” says Legge. “Then Covid hit and all the gyms closed down, so there was nobody to sell gloves to.

“So, in September 2020, I decided to get my licence as a manager in California. I’d already been sponsoring some fighters with apparel and had recruited boxers for two managers, so decided to give it a try myself.

“I started out with Hector Camacho Jr but that only lasted five months; it didn’t work out. So I decided I’m going to put a team together. I met Jackie, brought her in as a consultant, with [vastly experienced agent and matchmaker] Rick Glaser as an advisor. Jackie and I hooked up and talked and we hit it off as really great friends. I asked her if she wanted to be my consultant and she said ‘Absolutely’.

“She’s like my mentor. I only have a year-and-a-half in the game as a manager; she has 40+ years. Doing what she did in a 95 per cent male industry, I just admire everything she does. She’s always positive and not one person has one bad thing to say about Jackie Kallen.”

Eruption currently has two boxers on its books – 15–3 Puerto Rican welterweight Javier Flores and 16-5-3 Indian middleweight Tej Pratap Singh – as well as an equitable interest in the wonderfully named 2-0 super-welterweight Veshawn Champion, in association with Freeway Rick Ross.

“I want that mix; to bring in up-and-coming boxers as well as those who are advanced already,” says Legge.

That could almost describe the Eruption setup itself: the ‘up-and-coming’ Legge alongside the ‘advanced’ Glaser and Kallen.

“Anything I can do – co-manage, advise – I’ll do it to help her out,” says Kallen of her understudy. “Too often, people don’t help each other out, especially women. It disturbs me when women act like that, because we should be more of a sorority. We struggle for equality, so when you see another woman come along [in boxing], you should help her.

“I went through the shit, so if I can make someone’s path a little easier, why not?”