By Carwyn Holland
Following her failure to snatch the coveted Women’s International Boxing Association (WIBA) bantamweight world title belt from Shondell `Mystery Lady’ Alfred the multi-talented Corinne Van Ryck De Groot is turning her attention to other pursuits.
Two weeks ago De Groot suffered a technical knockout in one minute, 24 seconds of the fourth round of their world title rematch at the Princess Hotel in Georgetown.
Since then it had been rumored that De Groot who is also an actress and a stunts woman had decided to hang up her gloves.
But in an interview with Stabroek Sport, De Groot scotched those rumors stating that she was doing awesome and had other opportunities to work on now.
De Groot, who participated in the NBC-TV reality show `The Next Action Star’ said: “This rematch took so long to accomplish, it put me behind on some of my other endeavours. I have a play that I started rehearsals with that is travelling the country this summer,” she said.
“I also have a movie ‘The Fast and The Furious 5’ which I’m working on in July. Plus I have a fitness video project I am working on so I have a lot on my plate. I took the time to do what I had to do for this fight so now I have to spend some time working on some financially productive projects that I love,” DeGroot said via email.
Prior to the world title rematch De Groot was extremely confident she would have avenged her only loss in her 12 fights.
But 13 turned out to be an unlucky number for the “Gladiator” star.
Winning the title would definitely have boosted De Groot’s Gladiator and acting credentials and the movie star trained very hard for several months to fulfill her dream.
Her confidence going into the fight was so high that she pressed the action against Alfred from the first bell and was not afraid to trade punches in the early stanzas of the fight.
According to her coach Eric Williams he was pleased with the way she was fighting but she made a tactical error of attacking straight forward instead of using lateral movements.
He also said DeGroot, who was born in Canada to Guyanese parents, was proud to be fighting under the Guyana Flag and will embrace the champion Alfred on any given day because she sees her as her country woman.
She is also willing to offer any assistance Alfred needs to enhance her career.
DeGroot, who graduated from Seneca College with a BA in Criminology and English, started her professional career on July 25, 1998 against Norma Cuevas in Florida with a unanimous decision win. She returned two months later to knockout Latasha Boyd within one round and repeated her first round knockouts against Heather Shoffner and Holly Curry in January 1999.
The undefeated boxer then found the going tough finding opponents for the next three years and had to take tough fights just to keep active.
She however built up her record with wins over Sandy Liptak, Angie Bordelon, Carla Witherspoon, Brenda Vickers, Kelsey Jeffries and Jo Wyman.
Her impressive record then stood at 10-0 and she took a break for another five years before deciding to lace up the gloves in 2007 for a fight against Cantrell Sewell.
De Groot, who starred in the made for television movie `Bet Your Life’ knocked her opponent out in the first round but did not continue to actively pursue her ring career.
She instead found a hobby in acting and got her screen break as an actress and stunts woman and never looked back.
Speaking to Stabroek Sport after the fight her coach Williams said DeGroot has all the skills to continue fighting and could have been caught off peak due to the numerous postponements.
The 41-year-old De Groot managed to reignite the sport in Guyana at a time when it was experiencing low turnout of spectators.
It is not known when or if she will be back in the ring, but her input to Guyana’s boxing must be acknowledged.
