Jade Jones is known for being a two-time Olympic Taekwondo gold medalist. Her opponent, Egypt Criss, is known for being the daughter of hip hop music legends Anthony ‘Treach’ Criss of Naughty By Nature and Sandra ‘Pepa’ Denton from the group Salt-N-Pepa.
To make the transition from taekwondo to boxing, Jade Jones trained with former British and Commonwealth featherweight champion Stephen ‘Swifty’ Smith. Her opponent, Egypt Criss, was trained by her husband, Sam Mattick.
In one corner, Swifty Smith is a certified boxing trainer, and in the other corner, Sam Mattick has no legitimate training credentials. For Egypt Criss, the lack of boxing experience and boxing knowledge in her corner proved to be a disastrous combination.
In the opening round of the bout, Criss showed obvious signs of inexperience. Her hands were positioned too low, she was off-balanced, her footwork was terrible, her punches had no snap on them, and she was defensively irresponsible.
During the second round of the match, the southpaw, Jade Jones, landed clean, sharp punches. With 1:06 left to go in the second round, Jones landed three consecutive left-hand shots, which sent Cris face-first down to the canvas.
Due to the awkward manner in which Criss fell, the referee didn’t attempt to make a count, as he immediately put a halt to the contest. The knockout looked brutal, but moments later, Egypt Criss appeared to be okay.
After the fight, rapper Treach spoke about his daughter being set up as she was placed in a fight that was a mismatch. Treach blamed his clout-chasing son-in-law and the rest of his daughter’s team for putting her in harm’s way.
Egypt Criss was the victim of a vicious knockout, but fortunately, she didn’t suffer any major injuries. However, this bout could serve as a Cautionary Tale because the obvious red flags involved in this matchup could have led to serious injury.
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