Her fighting name: “Tiny Tina”. Your class: atomic weight. Before her world championship fight on Saturday evening in Berlin, the 1.53 meter tall Tina Rupprecht changed from the minimum weight to this new, lightest of all weight classes in women’s boxing. In the minimumweight category, Rupprecht from Augsburg became world champion in 2018 and successfully defended her title four times, but lost most recently. The decision to try her luck in the class up to 46.3 kilograms has paid off: after her victory over the Czech Fabiana Bytyqi in the ten-round duel, Rupprecht is now the WBC atomweight world champion on points.
“I’m really happy that I became world champion in two weight classes,” said the 31-year-old secondary school teacher German press agency. “I’m super happy, I’m very satisfied with the performance. Atomweight is mine, I feel even more comfortable there than before.”
Rupprecht (left) gave her Czech opponent Fabiana Bytiqi no chance in her point win in Berlin on Saturday.
(Photo: Burghard Schreyer/kolbert-press/Imago)
Rupprecht started kickboxing at the age of twelve, switched to boxing at the age of 14, and in 2009 she became German youth champion for the first time – in the paperweight category. At the 1st Boxing Club Haan Augsburg she trained more and more intensively under coach Alexander Haan, moved from the amateur to the professional class and saw that she could be successful there too. Since then, the 31-year-old has been fighting not only against her competitors for the coveted World Cup belt, but also against the gender pay gap, i.e. the salary gap compared to men. Because while the best boxing professionals receive millions in salaries for their World Cup fights, Rupprecht and Co. have to make do with five-figure sums. “That’s not bad. But if I were heavier and a man, I would be a millionaire long ago,” said Rupprecht in an SZ interview last summer: “I’m far from being taken care of and I still have to work in addition to boxing.”
Rupprecht, about whom coach Haan once said, “Tina is like a pit bull when boxing, she doesn’t let go of the meat until the end,” started studying to be a teacher at the University of Augsburg in 2012, her main subject: sport. She successfully completed her studies in 2018, parallel to her first World Cup title. During the week she now works as a sports teacher in Augsburg – and her passion for boxing is apparently well received there: despite her defeat last March at minimum weight against the American Seniesa Estrada and the loss of the world title, she was still with hers back then Return was greeted by the school band with the theme song from the “Rocky” film series. Rupprecht is now thriving again – as the first female atomweight world champion.