Tiptoeing down the stairs to the basement gym of her three-story townhouse in Druid Hill Park, Matheia Thompson-Ellis faced the shocking realization her little girl was more than sugar and spice and everything nice. Tonight, her 8-year-old daughter will find out if she?s the toughest 65-pounder on the East Coast.
She?ll become the youngest girl in USA Boxing when she enters the ring at Upton Boxing Center to face Michelle Jacobs of Raleigh, N.C. Promoters are calling Mia Ellis “the second coming of Laila Ali.”
“I thought it was just a phase,” her mother said. “I thought she was just playing around with it.”
Until her mother heard the sound of fists striking pads coming from the basement.
As she snuck downstairs to take a peak of her baby, she was shocked to see the power then-4-year-old Mia exerted to the pads her husband, Kenny, was holding.
“Tears swelled my eyes because I didn’t know how serious she was about boxing. I saw the way she was handling herself, she was really jabbing.”
Mia started throwing punches at 6 months, training in her basement at 2 and working out at the Upton Boxing Center on Pennsylvania Avenue when she was 5. Now, she?s a gym junkie from Monday through Friday.
“We tried the doll baby thing and she just wasn’t into it,” Kenny said.
The 4-foot-4, 65-pounder in beaded braids and yellow school uniform blends in with the rest of her second-grade classmates at Mount Royal Elementary as the honor roll student bounces in her chair to answer a vocabulary question.
But who would have guessed the quiet, shy girl nicknamed “Killer Bee” can throw 70 punches a minute.
“I really wouldn’t know if someone hadn’t told me,” Mia?s teacher, Linda Valle, said. “She doesn’t come out and say ?I?m doing this? or ?I?m doing that.? I’ve asked her. She doesn?t in anyway brag or make a display of it.”
After demonstrating a 40-punch drill for her class, one child exclaimed “She looks like Floyd Mayweather.”
The beginning
Mia?s interest in boxing arose as an infant resting on her father’s arm, watching one of his 2,000 boxing videos. Some children cry when Barney is turned off, but Mia shed tears after the end of each boxing video.
When she was a toddler, she used to crawl to the basement and grab boxing videos, bringing them in her parent?s bedroom. Now, she accompanies her father to his friend?s house to watch fights on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights. Her favorite movie? The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Even with two sisters ? Shakera Storey, 19, and Kendra Ellis, 14 ? Mia has grown accustomed to a boy?s sport. She doesn?t notice the absence of girls when riding her scooter around the ring after training with her father.
Her match tonight at 7 will be the first time she?s fought a girl.
“Most coaches won?t allow girls to spar with boys,” Ellis said.
It?s this preparation, Kenny said, that will give her an advantage when she steps into the ring tonight against Jacobs.
He said when Mia faces a girl, she will think, “What? This is all you got?” He predicted “She won’t take it light on them, she’s going to go right through them.”
Jervonta Davis, a 13-year-old boy who used to spar with Mia said “she fights like a boy. Her punches are sharper [than a girl?s] and she hits harder. She?s a champ.”
After watching Mia bust her lip sparring against a boy, Mia?s father waited to see how she would respond. The next day, she objected when he tried to go to the gym without her. When he reminded her of the painful blow the night before Mia responded: “I can still go.”
After an hour practice in which she pounded a punching bag and stood on a stool so she could strike a speed-punching bag, she moved into the weight room. She pressed 12.5 pounds in 30 times, and did a “one-minute drill” where she continuously benched and squatted a 12-pound pole. She also ran wind sprints to increase her explosiveness and conditioning.
Kenny Ellis, who has been scouting the competition at tournaments the past few years, said Mia?s strength and endurance are greater than the other girls.
“By the time they get started,” he said, “the fight will be over.”
When asked what her expertise is her father replied: “Speed, strength. She’s all around versatile. She can do it all. For her size, she’s strong for her age.”
For as well rounded as Mia is in the ring, her sisters add another side of the spectrum to the family dynamic.
Ellis nicknamed his three daughters and granddaughter to fit their personality. The eldest is named “Honey Bee” because of her modeling and beauty pageant career. The second is titled “Queen Bee” because of the way her family served her during severe asthma. The granddaughter is named “Rumble Bee” just for fun. But Mia ? the feisty one ? is named “Killer Bee” because she?s always been independent, not even allowing her parents to zip up her coat.
“She was in pampers throwing punches like Mike Tyson,” her father said.
Said Mia: “I only like boxing.”
Ellis said boxing is different from most sports because “youcan’t ?play? boxing. You can?t force a child to do it.”
Other parents have voiced concern to Mia?s mom and dad about her getting hurt. But Kenny Ellis isn?t worried. “Boxing is way down there on the list of injuries. More kids die in swimming, lacrosse, and football. Anything can happen at any given time at any sport. Boxing is a safe sport for kids.”
But some in the medical field disagree, claiming children are not fit to compete in a sport in which the goal is to pound the opponent to the ground.
“I don?t see how boxing can benefit this child,” Dr. Gabriela Cora, a psychiatrist for the Executive Health and Wealth Institute, said. “I just don?t see the benefit of them harming another kid and the other kid harming them, and one winning and one losing. Eight sounds extremely young, if you?ve thought about the situation. If you have an 8 year old who tried boxing matches at home, you?d call protective services.”
‘Muscles jump out of her shoulders’
Kenny Ellis thinks it?s important to have both parents involved in a child’s life. Mia?s mom makes her two waffles with syrup while watching her play boxing on a Wii before heading to the gym. But her mother avoids coming to the gym because she doesn?t like to watch her daughter get punched by boys. Away from the ring, Mia looks unassuming, with a flower-patterned shirt or dress covering her small frame.
“You would never know she was a boxer,” Kenny said. “Except for when you see her flex, you seemuscles jump out of her shoulders.”
She continues to grow into her Everlast shorts after the bottoms rubbed her ankles as a toddler.
Leon Fitzgrald, the coordinator of the Upton Boxing Center, said Mia?s commitment stems from her love of the sport and of her father, who was an amateur boxer, but earns his living as a forklift operator.
After the gloves and tape come off, Mia turns into her dad?s biggest fan. The two walk hand in hand down the street for a strawberry snow cone. Back at the gym, Mia stretches to reach her elbows to the mat of the ring as she gazes at her father training other boxers.
“I love all my kids, but she sticks to me like glue. I can’t shake her off, said Ellis, adding his older daughters may call down the stairs to him when he calls their names.
But Mia always comes running.
Lamont “Chin” Farmer, who owns the center where Mia threw her first punch, said she?s always had “the eye of the tiger,” even as a baby.
“Boxing for her is second nature,” Farmer said, “like rain or snow in the wintertime.”
