Swedish boxing transplant is more than just a pretty face

Richard Brian

Green Valley resident Donatella Hultin, 20, originally from Sweden, jumps rope while training at Johnny Tocco’s Boxing Gym. Hultin’s amateur record is 13-0, with eight knockouts. Her professional fight debut is tentatively set for March 14 at the Palms.

By Becky Bosshart (contact)

Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2009 | midnight

She's a blue-eyed 5-foot-7, 135-pound sweet-smiling woman from Sweden. So, when she says something like this, it comes as a bit of a surprise:

"I want to be a world champ," said Donatella Hultin, 20, before going into the ring for sparring practice. She's soft spoken outside the ring, but when Hultin throws punches, she buzzes like a killer bee.

"I'm always happy when I go to training," she says. "That's the best part of my day. I hate the weekends because there's no training."

To professional boxing managers Butch Gottlieb and Mary Ann Owen, this fighter is their next hope for a world championship title. The South Valley couple brought Hultin to Las Vegas to start her professional boxing career.

Life outside the gym doesn't seem to matter to Hultin. Her sweetest smiles are reserved for boxing, not a boyfriend.

"Her boyfriend is boxing," Owen said about her fighter's commitment to the sport.

Every weekday afternoon, Hultin can be found at Johnny Tocco's Boxing Gym at West Charleston Boulevard and South Main Street.

On a recent afternoon the odor emanating from the cut bodies hits like a jab to the jugular. The small gym is crowded with bare upper bodies concentrating on workout regiments against the bags, or each other.

It's difficult to navigate the gym and find Hultin at first. Her long brown braid, slicked back with sweat, gives her away. Hultin punches a double-end bag with a steady rhythm.

She's not the only girl in the gym. Out of the 150 boxers training here, four are women, gym manager Lesli Casal said. But Hultin stands out.

"She's got a lot of discipline," said Casal, who has managed the gym for about a year. "She really works hard and sticks to the task. And she's really pretty, so it's the guys trying to distract her from her boxing, not the other way around."

Tocco's was the training ground for Sonny Liston, one of the most powerful heavyweight punchers and jabbers, middleweight Marvelous Marvin Hagler and featherweight Salvador Sanchez, who is one of the fighters painted on the 25-foot mural outside the gym, Casal said. "Coal Miner's Daughter" Christy Martin, who is known for bringing attention to female boxing through her televised fights in the mid-1990s, also trained here.

Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, a former light heavyweight champion who boxed under the name Eddie Gregory, only cares how Hultin looks in the ring.

Gottlieb and Owen brought Hultin into the gym in October to see Muhammad, a trainer of 16 world champions. He checked out Hultin's form. Muhammad signed on as her trainer that day.

"We have a potential world champion because the one thing about Donatella is she's in the gym before me," Muhammad said. "That goes to show you, she wants to learn the game."

Muhammad says his young fighter has done well in sparring some pros. Her balance looks good. She's got a great right hand, he said. And this is the place to train.

Las Vegas is called the mecca of boxing, a city where titles are won, racial and gender barriers are crossed and rivalries are established, all before the masses at such venues as Caesars Palace and the MGM Grand. Gottlieb and Owen want their girl in those rings.

Hultin, 20, is shy outside the ring, speaking rarely and turning away from cameras. The first clue to her boxing demeanor is on her cell phone — the name "Donatella the Destroyer."

"When she gets into that ring she's like a stalker," said Owen, who then hunkered down and mimicked the punches. Owen is also a trained fighter and a former correctional officer.

Hultin's amateur record is 13-0, with eight knockouts. Her professional fight debut is tentatively set for March 14 at the Palms, an undercard to Chad Dawson versus Antonio Tarver, with promoter Gary Shaw. The fight card will air live on HBO's "World Championship Boxing" but Hultin's fight will not be shown.

Her determination attracted Gottlieb and Owen. Her sweet look almost was Hultin's downfall.

"When Mary Ann first saw her picture, she said 'No! She's too pretty. She can't fight!'" Gottlieb said.

They didn't know it then, but Hultin has always yearned to be a fighter.

She started karate at 8 and boxing at 13, which is the age regulation in Sweden. She dropped it for a while and then picked it up again at 17.

Hultin's mother, Christina Overa, an engineer in Sweden, financially supports her training.

Hultin dropped out of community college in Santa Monica, Calif., after only about a year and a half to focus on her training. That wasn't going so well in California. Hultin wanted managers who were more focused on her. And she wanted a top trainer.

Las Vegas was the best place to go for both of those things, she said, so Hultin searched the Internet and found the couple through their boxing Web site, www.boxinginlasvegas.com.

Guiding fighters is part of the job for Gottlieb, 66. For him, it started about 20 years ago when he sponsored a few kick-boxing fighters out of his Las Vegas sportswear shop. Gottlieb has managed several female boxing world champions, including Chevelle Hallback and Laura Serrano.

Gottlieb met Owen inside the dressing room of fighter Hannah "The Vegas" Fox, at the Orleans. The couple, who were born on the same day a year apart, have a common bond: a love of boxing. Together they form Infinity Boxing Management.

Owen's love of boxing began when she was 20 and moved to Las Vegas. She was introduced to local boxing legend Tocco while serving him coffee at her father's cafe, Sam the Sandwich King on Stewart Avenue. She combined that love and her career to cover boxing as a photographer.

Now 65, Owen recently completed a book, "Extraordinary Women of the Ring," and is shopping for a publisher. Her photography career has taken her ringside for the best fights in the country.

The couple has lived in Sun City Anthem for about 2 1/2 years.

Now as managers, the couple have to get their girl situated in her Green Valley apartment until her big fights come. Hultin finally got her gas turned on this week — after about two months of cold showers.

That brisk morning shower may have been a good wake-up on a recent Friday morning. Hultin had her first spar in front of big-time cameras — cable network Showtime.

She sparred with Vic Darchinyan, who trains at Tocco's, for a promotional trailer for the flyweight champ's Feb. 7 fight against Jorge Arce. The jab was this: Darchinyan is so ready for Arce, he's sparring with a girl.

"Back on the jab baby back on the jab!" yelled Hultin's trainer, Muhammad. "Double it up baby double it up. There you go there you go. Move your head side to side. And the hook there you go and the hook and the hook bring that hook back. Move your head side to side right? Side to side. Skip to him don't walk to him. Skip to him. There you go."

Hultin made a buzzing sound with her mouth guard as she threw each punch.

Afterward, the champ embraced Hultin and lifted her into the air. Both of them were drenched in sweat. The cameras roved to Hultin as his entourage swarmed the ring: How does she think Darchinyan will do in the upcoming fight?

"He's going to beat his a--," Hultin said.

She's already learning the smack-talk lingo.

Becky Bosshart can be reached at 990-7748 or becky.bosshart@hbcpub.com.