Sitzes Readies For Title Defense

NABF Featherweight champion and Springfield resident Jeri Sitzes will put her title belt on the line next month. She left for California Thursday morning, where Sitzes will train for the next three weeks for the upcoming fight. KOLR 10's Rob Evans caught up with the 28-year old boxer before she left town.

Ike Stafford/Sitzes' Trainer: "Win or lose, it's making a beautful fight. Like two beautiful dancers, dancing, showing their talent and boxing. It's a beautiful art."

If boxing truly is an art, then Jeri Sitzes is becoming the Picasso from Poplar Bluff.

Stafford: "This is stuff she loves to do, the jumping rope, the bag work, the running, that's you do it to good salsa music and dance when you do the bag."

Now living, training, and dancing in the Ozarks, Sitzes is the NABF Featherweight champion of the world.

Stafford: "She gets better every fight. She's fought the best in the world."

The most recent of those fights, and wins, came in front of a sold-out crowd at the Shrine Mosque in early April.

Jeri Sitzes/NABF World Champion: "It was insane, I knew I'd have people there for me, but it sounded like a soccer game in Europe. They were yelling and throwing things, it was just insane, it was great to be a part of it."

Rob Evans: "In late July, Sitzes will head to Atlanta where she will put her NABF belt on the line, taking on Melissa Hernandez. The second-ranked lightweight in the country. Hernandez has only lost once in her professional career."

Sitzes: "She's not anybody to play with, she's got great moves. She knows how to box, but she's a talker which I don't like, I'm all action. She's got those insecurities. She likes to talk crap. She's already said she's going to send me to summer school. I don't like summer school. hahaha."

Stafford: "I don't pay any attention to that. The only thing you pay attention is that these do the talking in the ring. They can say whatever they want to before and after. Doesn't make any difference what she thinks. She's going to be taught a lesson."

A lesson that would lead to yet another Jeri Sitzes victory dance.