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descriptions of domestic violence. If you or someone you
know needs help. You can call the National Domestic Violence
Hotline at 807 99 safe or 800-799-7233 or visit the
hotline.org there's also some salty language in this episode,
so take care while listening.
Christy: I'm really competitive, really competitive, and it was
one of those things that people told me I couldn't do. If you
tell me I can't do something, this is like telling me to go do
it twice because I'm going to
Caitlin Van Mol: Christy Martin grew up in a very small town,
Mullins, West Virginia, in a coal mining family. Her dad was
a miner, her uncles were miners, and her brother was a miner.
Christie was studying to be a teacher in college, but when she
entered and won a tough man boxing competition. In 1987 she
was hooked. She fought when she could in her area, and in 1990 a
promoter wanted her to work with a trainer in Tennessee.
Christy: I thought, What the heck I'm about to graduate from
college. I'll go down there and cut up for six months then come
back and get a job and for life, it was really just, I'm gonna
just have fun and relax before I have to start my life. You know,
apart from being a grown
Caitlin Van Mol: up, yeah, yeah. I don't know if boxing is my
idea of relaxing, but, well,
Christy: yeah, you know, I never thought of it. It was gonna be
my career, because I had never seen any other female fighter do
it, and, you know, walk into the gym and it was clear that he did
not want to train a female fighter.
Caitlin Van Mol: The trainer, Jim Martin, was against women in
boxing, but saw Christie's raw talent and agreed to train her.
Christie moved to Bristol, Tennessee, and she didn't know
anyone but Jim. He didn't seem to have any friends, either. So
they started having dinner together at the end of training
every day, just to have some company.
Christy: And it was kind of how sometimes, you know, when you
get, like, enamored by that coach or that teacher or that
somebody that, wow, they have all this knowledge that I want,
I want to soak up all that knowledge. And it was a little
like that. It just happened,
Caitlin Van Mol: their relationship went from
professional to romantic, but, like, barely romantic, and it
certainly was not a healthy relationship.
Christy: Yeah, well, so this is a little bit how crazy this
whole situation and relationship was. He actually told me, before
I married him, that if ever I left, he would kill me. I'm 21
years old. 22 years old. I, you know, laugh, yeah,
Caitlin Van Mol: jokes were different back then,
Christy: but, but as time went on, and I've often thought like,
when was that moment where I knew he was going to there
wasn't a joke anymore,
Caitlin Van Mol: this is live to tell the podcast where I talk to
some of the bravest people who have been through the most
horrifying things and lived to tell the tale. I'm Caitlin van
mol. Other than the threats, there were several other hurdles
for this to be a love story. First, Jim was 25 years older
than Christie, older even than her dad. Second, and probably a
bigger hurdle, Christie was gay.
Christy: In my mind, it wasn't like I was married to Jim
Martin. I was married to boxing, and that's what I did. You know,
we do boxing all the time, yeah, and it was okay, well, my focus
on boxing and just get better and work harder and try to be
successful with that. And and it made it like had an escape, I
guess. Even though he was controlling everything, it was
still okay. This is what I'm gonna do.
Caitlin Van Mol: Christy and Jim got engaged in 1992 as part of
his proposal, he told her that her family would disown her if
they found out she was gay, which they already knew but they
didn't know. No, you know, it was just unspoken of in their
family. Jim and Christy were married the day after this
proposal. I know you were encouraged by your mom to be
with him. How did you take that? Because you were enamored with
his, like, knowledge of boxing, but he was also, you know, 25
years older than
Christy: you than my dad. Yeah, he's older than my dad.
Caitlin Van Mol: But was that weird to have your mom be like,
be with this guy instead of just be with a guy? I
Christy: think it would have been any guy. It just happened
to be Jim at that time, and so she pushed forward to be Jim.
And it could have been any mol, I think, but Jim, also, he was,
you know, he was such a narcissist, and, and he played
my mother, they played each other. They they would join
forces to to work against me, and, and it worked for both of
them. Did not work so well for me, but it worked for both
Caitlin Van Mol: of them. Was that tough to have your mom kind
of conspire against you, like that?
Christy: I Yes. And you know, my mom just passed in February. I
know I'm sorry she had cancer, and so, you know, we knew it was
inevitable, but like, I try really, really hard to, I don't
know if you could say, make things right, patch things up,
you know something? Yeah, no, it never happened. I'm sorry. And
it's hard. You know, as far as it's tough when somebody's gone,
then you're like, we can't try anymore. You can't fix it. But I
try to remind myself that, you know, it did put a fourth in
effort.
Caitlin Van Mol: The Economics of being a boxer just starting
out aren't great. Most boxers at Christie's level had jobs to
support themselves and trained when they weren't at work. But
Jim wouldn't let Christy have a job.
Christy: There was plenty of time to at least work a part
time job or something, just so you have some money coming in.
Caitlin Van Mol: Why do you why was he so opposed? I think he
Christy: didn't want anyone else to talk to me and that maybe
they would say, this isn't this. This guy's crazy. This what
situation you're in isn't right? Yeah, and he never had a job. He
never had a job first, when we were first together, he
basically was just taking money from my dad. My dad's a coal
mine, a hard working man. Thank God I made enough money to pay
it back to boil, but I did. I couldn't pay it
Caitlin Van Mol: back. He wouldn't let Christy have a job,
but he would set up fights for her, just not the kind you'd
think. He told Kristy. He arranged for her to spar with
some men, but instead of going to a boxing gym. He took her to
their hotel rooms. She knew these quote, unquote sparring
sessions weren't about boxing. It
Christy: was like being a prostitute. That's how I felt. I
think it was acceptable to Jim, because Jim, like, was a sexual
deviant. And so not only is this guy getting some kind of whacked
out sexual fantasy pleasure, I'm not sure the gym was in the
world.
Caitlin Van Mol: How many times did that happen?
Christy: Maybe like five or six times.
Caitlin Van Mol: But things started to pick up for Christie
in the actual boxing ring, and through the early 90s,
Christie's star was on the rise. She went undefeated from 1990 to
1998 and was the first woman to sign with the legendary boxing
promoter Dawn King. King put her on the undercard of Mike Tyson
versus Frank Bruno in 1996 the undercard fights are kind of
like the openers of a concert. Christie fought Deirdre gogarty,
who broke Christie's nose in the second round. Christie continued
the fight with blood streaming down her face. Their performance
during this fight is credited as a turning point in legitimizing
women's boxing. But this success did make Christie and Jim's
relationship better.
Christy: Jim was nice when we were in front of people. Jim was
nice when. When it benefited Jim, but when it was just the
two of us, he would most of the time be telling me how whatever
possibly happened. It wasn't because of me or my work. It was
because of what he had done, or it really wasn't, you know, he
told somebody to say that. They really weren't gonna say, you
know, they liked my shoes, you know, some stupid but he was
all, I told him to say that,
Caitlin Van Mol: were there any happy times?
Christy: I mean, you won a big fight, all the team's happy,
everybody's high fiving. And good job that was happy. Was
there ever like, happy? Because I'm married to this man?
Probably not. Yeah. I mean, it was always like, this probably
wasn't a good decision.
Caitlin Van Mol: And other threats of murder aside, did you
think you could do it without him
Christy: after a while, and after signing with Don King and
fighting on those Tyson cards and really learning how to box,
I would often ask him, Can we get me another trainer? Because
I want to, you know, he got me to this level, but I wanted to
get to this level, and that would set him off. I think I
could have done it without him, but I needed him to teach me
what he had taught me, but to continue to grow. I needed not
they couldn't know about myself. I needed someone else. I needed
another coach just to teach me more about conditioning, about
mental relaxation in the ring, just all the bigger things that
you have to you learn through experience, but if somebody can
teach you a little bit or talk to you about it beforehand, it
certainly would help.
Caitlin Van Mol: Yeah, just more variety of skills for you to use
that Jim didn't know. But that would mean giving up some
control over Christie's career, and that would not fly with Jim.
How much control over your life did you have while you were
married?
Christy: I mean, he told me what to wear, who to talk to, what to
eat. There was really nothing that I made a choice on my own.
Caitlin Van Mol: Did Jim ever sabotage your career, whether
intentionally or unintentionally?
Christy: I wonder about that a lot, because after my contract
with Don King was over, and I took some fights, and I clearly
won and and I got losses. I mean, I won the fight, there's
no question. I went and fought in Boise, Idaho, and I clearly
won the fight, and they gave to a girl, and one of like, one of
the judges, it was a 10 round fight, and one of the judges had
seven rounds. Even you can't have seven rounds. Even you
don't even supposed to have an even round, but you do
sometimes, but seven so I did often wonder, yeah, how those
those things happen
Caitlin Van Mol: at the end. What was your guess?
Christy: I think as long as I was boxing, he had control of
me, but and if I would lose, then that would make him think
that I would think I needed him more. I needed him to train me
harder. I needed to work harder.
Caitlin Van Mol: Did you ever try to really leave him
Christy: in my mind? You know? I would go through my mind and
say, okay, my birthday is coming up. For my birthday present, I'm
gonna leave him, you know. And then it's so my birthday is in
June. June would come and go, and I would be there. And then
it'll be like, okay, Christmas is coming. I'm gonna leave him.
Christmas will come and go.
Caitlin Van Mol: Christie had some bad losses in the mid 2000s
and she was approaching 40. She was still training, but the big
fight offers just weren't coming in. Then one day, Jim brought
home a bag of cocaine
Christy: at that that time, you know, in my mind, I was, I was
done with boxing. And so if I'm done with boxing, he knows I'm
gonna leave. It's just, you know, matter of time, yeah, and
so then that's when cocaine came in to play. He helped me get
addicted to cocaine. He said he was my supplier. I mean, clearly
I was the one that bent over and did line after line. He made it
easy though. Well, I mean, when I first started with a coke I
was going to, I was still training, and I would just use
on, like, Saturday and Sunday, and then it was Saturday,
Sunday, Monday, then it was this, every day, 24/7 up for
days, and that was his biggest way to control me, because at
this point my boxing career was over, so he had lost control.
Now he needed to introduce something else. And. Some other
way to get control and keep control, and he did that through
the cocaine
Caitlin Van Mol: Jim not only controlled her supply, but
Christie found out he had planted cameras around their
house. Did the surveillance stuff start as he felt he was
losing control, because your boxing career was declining, or
was that kind of an always thing?
Christy: I honestly don't know. I think it was kind of toward
the end when I discovered
Caitlin Van Mol: this. Yeah, how did, how did you find out
Christy: some crazy stuff kept happening. I, you know, would
have a conversation in the house when it would be just me, and he
would know something that I said. And then sometimes, you
know, maybe some conversation I would have, or I talked to
somebody on the phone, and then he would make reference to it.
You know, there were too many things happening that that made
me, whoa, something's not right. Then I found the camera, and I
was like, you gotta be, you know, you gotta be shooting me.
I can't, you know, can't believe this. And I don't know why I
couldn't believe it.
Caitlin Van Mol: Yeah, did you confront him about it? Oh, yeah,
what did he say?
Christy: He he doesn't know. It wasn't that. It wasn't true. Oh,
my, it's right. Here I have it. You
Caitlin Van Mol: know, who else's camera is this? Right? I
didn't put this here, right, right? And you just didn't.
Christy: I don't know. I don't know how I got there. Okay? So
that you know, sometimes it's like, I know the truth and you
know the truth. So really, what are we going to sit here and
argue about?
Caitlin Van Mol: Like, if you can't even come through this
conversation in a re in reality, then I just don't know how to
engage with
Christy: you. And he, I think he lied so much that he not only
convinced himself that the lies that he told were true, but he
forgot what was true, because he just would lie.
Caitlin Van Mol: After about four years of using cocaine just
about every day, in late November of 2010 Christie
decided she was just done, done with cocaine, and most
importantly, done with Jim.
Christy: I walked through the house, I saw myself, and this
isn't who you are. So it took me a couple days, but I told him,
I'm leaving. He said, and if you leave me, I'll kill you. And I
said, look them straight in his eyes. And said, Do what you have
to do, Jim. And at that point I know he was gonna kill me, I
drove away knowing that he was gonna kill me.
Caitlin Van Mol: And why at that point was that not troubling?
Christy: What are you gonna do? I mean, what are you gonna do
this? This is, this is what is tough, because obviously I'm not
gonna tell someone else. This is how they should handle any
situation they need to go immediately and find somebody to
take care of them, find them, find safety. I need this. I'm so
much like so many other victims. You know, you don't know who's
no one can believe you, because they can't understand what is
happening to you. If you're unless you're getting the crap
beat out of you, and you can go show Bruce. Look, if he would
beat me up, and I could have gone to my dad and said, Look,
this is what he's doing to me. None of this would have
happened,
Caitlin Van Mol: yeah, but it's just like 1000 little things,
Christy: and you can't explain emotional to someone that has
never had it or seen it, you can't explain that. So So I
left, and then I actually went and met Sherry.
Caitlin Van Mol: Sherry was Christie's high school
girlfriend. They had recently reconnected over Facebook and
decided to meet in St Augustine, Florida, where Sherry was
already visiting friends,
Christy: spent the night with her, and I, you know, I told her
everything, because I really knew it was going to kill me. So
I might, I want somebody to know my story.
Caitlin Van Mol: But he had followed you. He had followed
Christy: me. He had called my phone. He had said he was so
close he could touch me. And of course, I didn't, you know, I
didn't know it was follow me. You know, he wanted me to know
that he was watching me. He was gonna, he was gonna kill me.
Then I actually went back, and everything was, you know, I was
in the house. He was in the house.
Caitlin Van Mol: So she had gone back to the house, and Jim
hadn't done anything to her. She left again for a commentating
gig, and while she was away, Jim called Christie's mom, outing
her as gay, and sent her private photos of Christie. Meanwhile,
during her drive home, Christie called a couple people in her
life to say goodbye. Okay, that's how sure she was about
her inevitable murder.
Christy: Well, I told Sherry I was, I have this terrible
headache, but I have to go back. She said, memorize my phone
number before you go
Caitlin Van Mol: back. Why did you have to go back? I
Christy: wasn't gonna run the rest of my life. And I go in.
You know he's he's still there. He's actually still been at the
gym. He said I had somebody else taking care of the gym tonight.
Okay, I'm gonna go lay down. My head's killing me, my stomach's
hurting. I'm gonna lay down for just a little bit, and I'm gonna
go to the gym and work out. I'm getting back in shape. I'm on a
fight.
Caitlin Van Mol: Yes, she did say earlier her boxing career
was over, but she was getting clean from the Coke, and she was
leaving Jim, it was a whole new leaf turning, and that meant
maybe her career wasn't as done as she thought.
Christy: So he came into the room and said he had something
to show me, and I thought he had a boxing contract, because this
is what we had been talking about, that I need to get back
in the ring, whatever. What he had to show me was a knife, and
he stabbed me repeatedly, puncturing my lung, cut my calf
muscle almost from my leg. And then we get on the floor, and he
starts beating my head against the dresser. And it was like,
boom, that's when the switch split. And I was like,
motherfucker, you cannot kill me. And I meant it. I mean I
meant it. He couldn't kill me. He stopped beating me. He had
cut his own hand when he was stabbing me, and he went to take
care of his own wound and left me laying there.
Caitlin Van Mol: She begged him to get her help. My
Christy: lung was gurgling, and I'm like, don't let me die. Give
me help. And I tried everything. You know, I'm like, but my mom
and dad had a stillborn child, so they've already lost one
child, please, you know, don't put them through it. I tried
everything. Pleaded in every way.
Caitlin Van Mol: Is he saying anything back? He's
Christy: just looking at me, and he walks in and out, in and out.
Finally, you know, he came. He stood at my feet.
Caitlin Van Mol: He now had Christie's pink revolver in his
hand.
Christy: I guess I wasn't dying. So he stood at my feet with my
my gun, and I told him, You don't have the balls to shoot
me. And he shot me. Missed my heart by three inches, and he
wiped off the gun, he wiped off the knife, he put everything
beside me, and went and got in the shower. When he got in the
shower, I'm like my eyes to God's eyes. I say I were looking
through this little register in the ceiling and say, God, please
let me get out. Let me get out of here. And it was immediately
they heard the shower water turn on, and I knew it's my time.
This
Caitlin Van Mol: was her opportunity to get out of the
house and get some help.
Christy: Every time I would raise up, blood would squirt out
of all these holes. And so it was scared me. I would lay back
down. But this time, I took a t shirt, and I was pressing on the
on the gunshot wound, which was actually shot me through the
same one of the same stab wounds. And I picked up the gun
and I picked up my car keys go out the front door and get to
the car had their own keys. Oh, shit. What am I gonna do? So I
went to the middle of the road, and first car goes by me on the
hill. Can this guy go by me? The next car might know where
they're letting them buy he was my angel, Rick Cole, and he
picked me up. I gave him the handed in the gun, and just
said, Please don't let me die. He took me to the Apopka
hospital, and I would tell him, I'm sorry, sir, I'm bleeding all
over the back of your car. Actually, I just talked to him
recently. He's like, Yeah, I traded that car after that there
was blood all over the backseat.
Caitlin Van Mol: How do you sell a bloody car? Yeah,
Christy: so I get to the hospital, and I'm begging them,
you know, don't let me die. Don't let me die. They actually
life flighted me down to Orlando, to the trauma trauma
hospital, and, you know, stitched me up, put me back
together. He sat me four times to start with, and then he had
pistol whipped me. So my ear, I guess that was during the pistol
whipping part. My ear was actually ripped off. My ripped
from my head that stitched that back on. I had cuts on my face,
and this they had stitched me different places on my
shoulders, and then he cut my calf muscle, which was just it
looked like it was gonna fall off, and they put it all back
together. The doctor was afraid I wasn't gonna be able to walk.
Caitlin Van Mol: Yeah. How did you walk out from the house?
Christy: I did. I think God carried me.
Caitlin Van Mol: Was it the cut from the top down or from the
bottom up?
Christy: I. He cut from the top down,
Caitlin Van Mol: yeah, and it was just kind of like flopping
away,
Christy: barely hanging on. I mean, really, literally, barely
hanging on the whole thing. You know, he had a sharp knife.
While I was laying down, I could hear him sharpen that knife, but
he did that often, so I didn't think anything about it. But the
good thing was, you stayed with someone with a sharp knife. It
doesn't really hurt. Had it been dull, it would have probably
been much more painful.
Caitlin Van Mol: That's the positive. We'll be right back.
So while you're in the hospital, who is there for you.
Christy: Well, Sherry. Sherry was there my mom, my mom and dad
and my brother and my sister in law came down.
Caitlin Van Mol: Who was the one to tell your parents what
happened?
Christy: I called there from the hospital, but I don't know if I
called before they some people, I guess ESPN and ABC News. I
mean, it went out pretty fast. Oh, wow. Yeah, I know some of my
friends were like, Oh, shit. You know, people were trying to call
me. Of course, the police. Have my phone ever seen that on
national news?
Caitlin Van Mol: A huge part of the news about your attack was
she left him for another woman and something you had been
hiding your whole life was now out there. How did that feel?
Well,
Unknown: it didn't have to, I, I didn't have to, like, creep out,
you know.
Christy: So, you know, I didn't have to tell people gradually,
one on one, everybody knew. So that was a positive.
Caitlin Van Mol: Less work for you absolutely,
Christy: you know, I just, I said, from the hospital, you
know what? At this point, people can get on the on the train or
off. It doesn't matter. Just mattered less. This is who I am,
like me or not, doesn't really matter.
Caitlin Van Mol: Was there? What was the reaction from like, the
boxing community?
Christy: It's so funny because your man convinced me that the
boxing community would would turn their back and would hate
me, and it's been absolutely the opposite. I'm still in the
boxing world, if they had turned their back on me, I would have
been gone.
Caitlin Van Mol: How? I mean, I guess, how throughout your
career, How nervous were you about that secret coming out?
Christy: I would tell him often that, you know, he wanted me to
say really negative, nasty things to opponents that were
gay. I would tell him, somebody's gonna come from my
past, and this isn't smart, this isn't a smart approach. But he
would insist that I say pretty nasty things, and if I didn't,
then you know what? People don't understand. They could be pissed
off that I said these things, but you choose your battles. Do
I want to just say this battle with this person for a minute?
Or do you want to go back and have to listen to him? Beat me
down, beat me down. Beat me down. And I want to get ready
for the fight. I don't want to go argue with him because I
didn't call this person a die. Is I just again? You pick or
choose your battles.
Caitlin Van Mol: Yeah, do you regret anything you said?
Christy: Yeah, of course, I'm not really a nasty person. Yeah,
I love shit talk though. I mean, I love the whole press
conference banter back and forth. But, you know, someone's
sexuality was simply, is really off limits. You know, you know
some things you don't talk about.
Caitlin Van Mol: After a six day search, Jim Martin was found in
a neighbor's shed and arrested. When did you find out that he
was arrested?
Christy: I was in the hospital and saw it on the news. I think
either we saw, I don't remember if the police came and told us,
or if we saw it on the news?
Caitlin Van Mol: Remember, too much information is being shared
with you via the news, yeah, instead of from an officer of
some kind?
Christy: Yeah, and he could have, I can't, I don't, I just
don't.
Caitlin Van Mol: Remember, before you knew he was caught,
were you afraid at all that he would try to hurt you.
Christy: So they had me in a locked in on unit at the
hospital where no one could get to me. So that made me feel
comfortable, but I felt also that he might try something this
could never tell.
Caitlin Van Mol: While she was in the hospital, Christie found
out her home was being foreclosed on. This was shocking
to her, because, to her knowledge, the house was paid
off.
Christy: He basically scammed or schemed. I don't know which we
should say, one of my friends that worked at the bank and
mortgaged a house that was paid for, I always would say to him,
Look. I can work at Walmart and pay my utilities. My house was
paid for. I don't have to worry. But didn't work out like that.
Well, the good thing is, my dad got here and they got
everything, all my stuff out.
Caitlin Van Mol: Did you ever ask to see any of like the
financial stuff at all?
Christy: Well, the crazy thing was, like, I did most of the
financial stuff, but he was doing backdoor deals with
everybody, until the end, when cocaine was crazy. I mean, I was
doing was coke 24/7 you know, I didn't, every 10s of 1000s of
dollars go places and I didn't see it, but I think part of that
was, like backdoor stuff. Was money he was getting that I
didn't know anything about what like, what like. I think, you
know, I made X amount of dollars for my fights, and then he got a
side deal from, you know, whoever was the promoter at the
time, I would go to different places to make appearances, and
I would get x, and he would get y, and I never knew about y, and
I argued with him all the time about, you know, investing the
money at that particular time, buying houses anytime is good to
buy real Estate. But at that time, stuff was cheap and and it
was always he would go buy a new car, new motorcycle, a new
Rolex. Was
Caitlin Van Mol: it? Did you guys ever work out? I mean, I'm
assuming not, but like, work out an arrangement of, like, if my
purse is this much, then you get this much, or was it just all,
What's mine is yours?
Christy: So I tried that, I tried that, and His thing was,
okay, fine. I'll take my 30% and then I'll still have half of
what you have because I'm your husband. I like, Okay, so that's
not gonna work, but you don't try. I tried. I made it. I
really, really tried. I made poor decisions because I gave in
to to the fights. And I should have, I should have just stood
my ground, but I didn't. So you know, this is where I am today,
Caitlin Van Mol: and it's also like you spend all this mental
energy on training that your life can't be 100% fights, so
something's gotta go. You can't be fighting in every which way,
in every aspect of your life.
Christy: You get to the point of, you know, you pick and
choose your battles. But I should have stood my ground, but
I didn't.
Caitlin Van Mol: Christie was in the hospital for over a week
when she left the hospital. Where do you think she went?
First? Somewhere to rest, of course not, she went to the gym.
Why were you so eager to go to the boxing gym right after you
got out of the hospital, I would go to
Christy: bed because I that's just where I felt the safest.
That's where I wanted to be. That's where I wanted to show
people that, no, he did not kill me. He did not win this fight,
and I'm going to win this fight. So I went back to the gym. I
still had, I don't even know, hundreds of stitches in my leg,
and the bullet was still in my back, well, because it went in
my chest, and then I was laying on the floor, so it didn't go
all the way through me, but you could feel it like right there,
yeah, under my skin,
Caitlin Van Mol: so you went back to the box, saying, Jim,
when did you become determined to fight again? Oh, from the
Christy: hospital. I called Miguel Diaz and asked him if he
would train me. And he's, of course,
Caitlin Van Mol: Christie agreed to a fight against Dakota stone
for March 12, 2011, just three months after the attack. To me,
this sounds just like absolutely unfathomable, if not only for
the your shot, your lung collapsed, but to have your calf
almost sliced off, how reasonable was it actually to be
back in a professional fight in three months?
Christy: Probably wasn't very reasonable. When I went back to
the gym and started to spar, I my rib got broken in sparring,
yeah, and pretty certain that that rib was broken from the gun
shop, and then when I got hit in it just like broke completely.
Caitlin Van Mol: Was anyone saying, This is too soon?
Christy: Well, no, because I'm around boxing, people that are
like, Oh, we can make a lot of money off you getting right back
in the ring.
Caitlin Van Mol: Her broken or re broken rib. Didn't allow her
to fight in March,
Christy: it healed, and then I fought in in June, so it was
still pretty quick, like six months after being shot. Yeah, I
fought, and then I broke my hand in that fight, pretty severely.
Caitlin Van Mol: Three, there were 50 seconds to go in the
last round to give Christie her 50th win. She had dropped Dakota
stone in the fourth round, so she knew she was winning, but
she landed a punch that broke her hand, and the referee saw
her briefly turn away. He stopped the fight, which meant
Christie lost.
Christy: Oh, when I when my hand was broken, that was ridiculous.
I mean, I told the doctor afterwards, I this is crazy. He
said, Yeah, but Christie, you spoke at a ringside physician
conference, like a couple years ago, and you say, we as ringside
physicians have to protect fighters from themselves. I
said, Yes, motherfucker, but I wasn't talking about me. Come
on, man. 50 seconds from getting my 50th win, I just got shot and
stabbed, and you want to start this fight because I have a
broken hand? Ridiculous, ridiculous. All I had to do was
finish on my feet. 50 more seconds,
Caitlin Van Mol: Christie had to have surgery on her hand, and
Christy: when they put me to sleep to fix my hand, I had a
stroke. So was like, geez. I said, God, I know you've only
put on us so much as we can take, but you think I'm a lot
stronger than I am?
Caitlin Van Mol: That's my mom always had to build character.
Just be like, I'm all set. I'm good on character, yeah. What do
you think caused this stroke? Was it the cocaine, just like
wear and tear from boxing, like being
Christy: hit? You know, boxing blames the hospital. Hospital
blames boxing. Was it stress? Was it cocaine? Was it punches
behind the head. Was it? God just telling me Christie's
enough? I don't know.
Caitlin Van Mol: Sherry was still in Christie's life and
helped her get back on her feet after this setback. How
important was it for you to have Sherry help you?
Christy: Oh, before the stroke, we had decided we were sleeping,
then I had the stroke, and she stayed and took care of me. So
we continued to try, but this wasn't gonna work. Yeah, so I
appreciate probably more than she'll ever know the fact that
she's stayed beside me two times. No do the shooting and
stabbing. And so she stayed with me then. And then, after the
stroke, when we both were done, she stayed and and tried to help
me get her, you know, get back on my feet. And part of it was
probably mental and emotional, but like, I couldn't see. I have
double vision still today. No, I woke up, I couldn't walk, I
couldn't talk. There was a lot of issues, and I didn't have
insurance, so it wasn't like I could go have therapy, so I was
just trying to do it on my own, get back up.
Caitlin Van Mol: But insurance, no, is I? There's no, like,
boxers insurance.
Christy: Well, yeah, it was $50,000 they fixed my hand.
That's it, you know, they fixed my hand, and I had the stroke,
drug surgery. So the good thing was, hospital got a little
nervous, I think. And, yeah, the bills went away.
Caitlin Van Mol: But, but yeah, insurance not covering like
mental health services? No, yeah, no, so the hospital bill
went away. But even after getting shot, stabbed, a broken
hand and a stroke, Christy was determined to get her 50th win.
Christy: The doctor told me, do not get hit in the head again.
But I was set in my mind that I want to get 50 wins. I want to
get a win without Jim Martin, because that's important to me.
And I'm going to pick this person that I already beat and
that I know can't really fight, and I'm going to beat her so
I'll get my 50 wins. Bad decision. Bad decision. I didn't
train you shouldn't fight after having a stroke, so I did and
and I lost to somebody that doesn't not in my class,
Caitlin Van Mol: someone knew about the stroke and still let
you fight. I'm grown.
Christy: I'm grown a lot of people, you know, people close
to me, new but I'm grown. What are you gonna do? Maybe I want
to make my own decisions.
Caitlin Van Mol: Yeah, has anyone ever looked out for your
best interest? I don't know.
Christy: Yeah. Good question. That's a really good question.
Caitlin Van Mol: It just seems like, yeah, you are grown. You
can make your own decisions for yourself, but like, at some
point someone's got to be like, Look.
Christy: I mean, like, right now, Lisa, trust Lee. Says,
telling me I can't do the
Caitlin Van Mol: I can't do boxing. Lisa is her wife,
Christy: and you know, all these people are making really good
money to come back and and have celebrity boxing matches. And
you know what the truth is, she's right because I don't have
the, I don't have the energy to train like you have to, but if I
did have the energy to train and to really get back in shape, I
Oh, it would be hard to tell me that I keep
Caitlin Van Mol: but she did have one more fight, not in a
boxing ring, but in a court of law. How did you react when he
pled not guilty? We're not surprised. What was his defense?
Christy: He had no defense. I mean, that was the whole thing.
He had no defense. He I think he said, I don't think or no self I
was in the courtroom, so I don't remember if it was he tried to
say was self defense. It's a little
Caitlin Van Mol: tricky to believe self defense when your
only wound was self inflicted and the other person is stabbed
a bunch of times and shot. Yeah? What was testifying like?
Empowering?
Christy: Yeah. And it was, it was good. It was good to be
there in front of him and look him in his eyes and tell him
when I answer questions, you know, answering to him, let him
see that I'm strong, and he wanted to screw me up there for
a little while, but I'm
Caitlin Van Mol: back on track. Did he react to anything you
said? He didn't,
Christy: I don't know if they had him drugged, because he's
really arrogant and so for him not to make any expression,
because there's no way that some of the things I said and didn't
push buttons enough to make a reaction.
Caitlin Van Mol: Jim Martin was found guilty and sentenced to 25
years in person. He was 67 years old at the time, and would be 92
when he got out. Did you give a victim impact statement for his
sentencing? End it. How did that feel to be able to just speak
freely?
Christy: I was speaking and his counsel objected. And then the
judge told me I had to be finished. And I told the judge,
hold on a second, because I'm not done. I mean, this man tried
to kill me, and I should get to say what I want to Yeah. And so
hold on judge. And I finished, and I walked right to him and
said, mother fucker, I hope you burn in hell. And my attorneys
were like, she's crazy, but I think deep inside, they loved
it.
Caitlin Van Mol: Now that Jim was in prison and Christie's
boxing career wasn't coming back, she needed to figure out
what to do with herself. She had gone to college to become a
teacher, so that's what she fell back on.
Christy: So one thing really was cool, I am I taught school in
Charlotte for a little while after being shot and stabbed.
And, you know, my name is really back to Christie Salters, so I
go into school and and no one knows Christy Martin, they just
know Christy Salters and I made relationships with people
Christie, Christie Salters never telling them about the domestic
violence, never tell them about boxing, never telling them
anything. And it was pretty cool. You know, I felt like,
wow, these people like me, because me not, not because
what? Anything else, they don't even know that person. So it was
I needed that at that time of my life.
Caitlin Van Mol: She also reconnected with Lisa Halloween.
Christie had fought and won against Lisa in her last fight,
promoted by John King in 2001 How did you reconnect with her?
Christy: She just called me after being, you know, after
everything happened, and checking, checking up on me.
Caitlin Van Mol: Did you guys like, know? I mean, I know you
fought her, but were you friendly at all for before,
Christy: not really like she came and sparred with me a
couple times, but I didn't, I didn't stay in touch with her,
you know, on a even a casual basis. Yeah, she called me and
then she came to one of my fight promotions in Charlotte.
Caitlin Van Mol: This is now 2017 and Christie had added
promoter to her boxing repertoire,
Christy: just to kind of hang out and check out one of the
fights that was promoted,
Caitlin Van Mol: just to hang out.
Christy: Well, I don't know. She must have a plan.
Caitlin Van Mol: When did you guys get together?
Christy: So we got together right away, and then we got
married in 2017
Caitlin Van Mol: Well, how long were you dating? Mol,
Christy: not mol. It was quick. I told her, is it like a shotgun
Caitlin Van Mol: with it? Did you have any Well, I guess not,
since you got married so fast. But did you have any problems
like trusting her, given your last relationship, even though
it's night and day, because you actually liked her?
Christy: Yeah? Me. To me, trust is a big thing with everybody.
You know, I don't trust, I don't trust hardly anybody, yeah, so
it's a big issue, yeah, for sure, trust. And, you know, I
was, I was just out there having fun thinking I was a teenager,
and then boom, here she came so
Caitlin Van Mol: but whether or not her parents really accepted
her sexuality is still unspoken.
Christy: Think my dad's okay. He loves Lisa, except and
understand, are probably two different things. So how is your
mom? She's, I guess, I don't know. She never really like I
said, except isn't even a right word, probably. And then
understand, I don't even know. I don't know how to say how she
felt.
Caitlin Van Mol: Yeah. Jim Martin died on November 26 2024
How did it feel when you heard that news?
Christy: You know, I've had so much happening. Sometimes I'm
not sure that put any thought to it, to it or or let myself have
any feeling or emotion to his death.
Caitlin Van Mol: Haven't really dealt with that yet. Does that
almost feel like freedom, the ability to just not be terribly
affected, or are you just kicking the can down the road?
Christy: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that that I'll ever
feel free from his ties.
Caitlin Van Mol: How do you still feel those today?
Christy: I certainly hear his voice sometimes with, you know,
bringing negative stuff like, my stuff is good, I sometimes hear
this negative take on things or something negative, yeah, but,
you know, that's just one of the things I have to deal with,
still, still trying to defeat, you know,
Caitlin Van Mol: like he's become the self critical part of
you. Probably in 2021 Netflix released a documentary about
Christie called untold deal with the
Christy: devil. Yeah, I look at the messages a lot of support
from it, that it was helping other people, giving them
inspiration, and giving them knowledge about domestic
violence and how to get out and to get away. Not less, same
things happen to them. And then also parents dealing with their
children's sexuality. Had a lot of parents contact me about
about their children. That made me feel that made me feel really
good, good.
Caitlin Van Mol: Christy also has a biopic coming out Friday,
November 7. That's this Friday. If you are listening to this the
week this episode is released.
Christy: I mean, to be the movie in city. Sweeney playing me is
really cool, really I told her, you know, she's gonna be
connected to me for life, because we're gonna make a
difference for a long time. Yeah, people are gonna be
surprised about Cindy sweetie's performance. She got down and
dirty and became me
Caitlin Van Mol: today. Christie is a public speaker, and she and
her wife Lisa, are still in the boxing world, just
Christy: if anybody you know like trying to book speakers,
and we're all out there. Christy martin.net, we're having fun. We
both love boxing. We just bought a land for training center here
in Central Florida, which we're gonna do box, real boxing, but
we're also going to do punching for Parkinson's. When I was in
North Carolina, the domestic violence shelters, they would at
least bring the kids that were in the shelter to the boxing
gym, which was, I felt like, was positive for the kids, yeah. And
then sometimes the mothers that were in the shelters would come
and bang the bags. And boxing is a good it's a good outlet, and
it's, I tell everybody that boxing is not going to teach you
how to fight, and that's not what using boxing for domestic
violence struggle is what it does, is it helps your self
confidence, and confidence is what we need. So through boxing.
Or any physical exercise, I think, but boxing is my sport,
so I think it just builds your self confidence, it builds your
self esteem, and now you believe in yourself.
Caitlin Van Mol: Then Caitlin, this is live to tell I'm Caitlin
van mol. You can follow the show on Instagram and Tiktok at live
to tell podcast, and you can follow me at Caitlin van mol,
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