Boxing
Mischa Merz began her amateur boxing career in 1998. In a dozen fights she contested three national championships in the Australian Amateur Boxing League, winning silver in 1998 and gold in Launceston in 2000.
She last fought in Australia in 2002 but boxed many exhibition bouts after that.
She resumed her competitive fighting career in the United States in 2009, in the Master’s Division of USA Boxing, winning five out of five fights including the National Women’s Golden Gloves 138lb title, the Georgia Games championship and the Ringside World championship.
She last competed in New York, at her home gym, Gleason’s in Brooklyn and although she lost in a close decision to Natalie Davilla, considers this one of her best performances and best opponents.
Mischa has visited gyms around Australia and the US and Cuba and trained with some of the key figures in the international women’s boxing scene who inspired her to eventually open her own gym, Mischa’s Boxing Central in 2013, leaving behind a 30 year career in newspaper journalism. The gym is situated in Melbourne’s inner West and was the first boxing gym owned and run by a woman in the state.
