Why Ana Julaton has much to look forward to heading into bout with Villafranca

Julaton will be meeting 18-year old Jessica Villafranca in Yucatan, Mexico tomorrow night, in the second defense of her title, and hearing her story first hand gave me an appreciation for the type of spirit she possesses. There is much more to Julaton than her work with Freddie Roach or her Philippines roots, and in speaking with her you are taken into the world of a woman who has had an uphill battle all her own, but one that she wouldn’t trade for anything.

 

In this revealing and candid interview, Julaton and I discussed her upbringing, how her initial foray into the sport was unexpected, the hurdles she faces as a woman in a sport dominated by males, what it’s like putting in work at the infamous Wild Card, how she overcame her two defeats, and her mindset heading into the future.

 

In her own words, this is what Julaton had to say…

 

“I was born in San Francisco, California. I grew primarily all over the Bay Area, San Francisco, Daly City, Pacifica, Vallejo, and so forth. I went to seven different schools before I graduated from one junior high school, and that’s El Camino High in South City. But, for me growing up, it’s interesting being from a Filipino decent. It was a little tough to find that identity. It’s ironic because I ended up going into boxing, which isn’t something that I aspired to be when I was a kid. I ended up touching back with my roots and I was able to kind of find myself. It was destiny for me to do this.”

 

“I have a martial arts background. I’ve been doing it for about twenty years; my Dad got me into it. It was something that the whole family did, my Dad, my brother, and myself. We did that consistently together as a family and I had heroes like Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and so forth. To me, culturally, they were the closest I could look to. It sounds really basic, but imagine growing up as a child and not being able to have that confidence of knowing who you are. For me, martial arts was  big thing for me. When I got into boxing, it was through my martial arts school over in Berkeley, California, and they wanted to incorporate something a little bit modern, because it’s a very traditional school. So they chose boxing because they feel like they have the same element as martial arts. My lesson in boxing was actually stepping into the ring and doing a sparring session with a couple of guys and I didn’t know anything. I learned right away that you have to have a lot of heart. Through that, I just kind of stuck with it.”

“Believe it or not, Angelo is a black belt in martial arts. He was one of the owners of the martial arts school and he actually got his black belt over in China. He was the one who introduced boxing to the martial arts school and I got into it and it just kind of took off. It was a rocky road. For those who actually know Angelo, he is a very passionate guy. If he wants certain things done or if he looks for certain things; I remember back in training, back when he trained me in the amateurs, everything had to be perfect, so we had a lot of fights. He’s a guy that I definitely trust.”

“For me it was a fight from the get-go. I remember, two weeks after I stepped into the ring, I enrolled in the San Francisco Golden Gloves tournament and I ended getting a silver against, at the time, one of the highest rated amateur girls in the Bay Area. One of the things that bothered me was that they couldn’t get my name right. For me, since it’s an amateur program, and I’ve been in amateur programs before outside of boxing, I always felt like it was something that should enhance an individual’s confidence. One way to heighten that is by spelling a person’s name. So, that’s just on top of the all the other things I faced, like sexism and so forth. Through that, I fight like I was fighting more than just inside of the ring at certain points.”

“It can be tough. I remember when I was over at Wild Card Gym out in L.A. I was sticking around to watch all the other guys spar, you know Manny Pacquiao and Amir Khan, and I was just stretching, and I like to have my nails polished, and there’s this big, burly guy and he’s huge, he’s massive, and he looks at me and he asks me ‘What the hell is that girly shit?’. And he’s referring to my nails and I had to look at him and I said ‘This is some world-class mother******* s***!’. I had to step up to it. I don’t like to be confrontational, I like to keep to myself because there is people like that out there who’s always going to criticize you or read you from how you look. That’s just one of the daily things I have to deal with.”

“It’s definitely an honor. Because I try to go in there and push myself as much as a I can. I’m always in there and I don’t mess around. I like to watch people, study people, I like to watch Freddie and other trainers and other fighters who are up and coming. When I go out there I know I am representing myself and Freddie. One thing I do appreciate from everyone is that everyone understands hard work. So if you go in there, whether you are male or female, a kid or an adult, it doesn’t matter because if you put in the work you will get the rightful respect. So I’m still lucky to even have this opportunity.”

 

“Just being in boxing, being a female in the sport, I feel like a lot of my success comes internationally, and because of that I was able to have a great promoter in Allan Tremblay over in Toronto and he’s able to have me fight in Canada, he’s had me fight over Mexico, and he’s been able to get my name out their worldwide. And I feel like if I am able to come across to the fans, it doesn’t matter where you are from, if you go out there and you put out a good fight I feel that people can connect to you. And that’s my main goal, to show what I’ve been working on.”

 

“I don’t take any of them back, because man, my first loss happened in my first year as a professional. I had like five of six fights, and I was able to work with the likes of Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank and it was in that time when the whole Pacquiao team was just rising and stuff like that. I was training at the Wild Card and I got hooked up with Freddie and there was a whole lot of things that were on the back of my shoulders as I was trying to come up in the ranks. In my rookie year I went for a title fight, it was against Dominga Olivio and I just wasn’t an experienced fighter at the time. I went over there and I fought the wrong fight and I learned a lot from it. I learned a lot, knowing that I have this loss and there are people who know about it, what do you do about it? Do you want to crumble or does it make you want to move forward?”

“Sure enough, I took some time off, I reevaluated it, I trained hard and I ended up winning my first world title in my next fight against Kelsey Jeffries. And then I went to this launch where I went for the WBO, ended up winning that, and then I went for the WBA and tried to unify the titles against Lisa Brown. From there I was able to propel myself from where I had grassroots promotions and I was being able to headline an event over in San Jose against Kelsey Jeffries and have 3,500 people show up, that’s with nobody else promoting except for the community, and off of word of mouth. Versus the Lisa Brown fight, I ended up having a big Philippine network, GMA, and they were able to have an outreach of at least 30 million people worldwide.”

“For me, that was just a big stage. And to carry all that weight in such a short amount of time, and having that devastating loss, which is one of the reasons why I didn’t want to stop that fight after having two head-butts. I think it would have hurt the sport even more had the ref stopped the fight in the fifth round. Because there was so much build up to it. I had sit back and kind of reevaluate myself and figure out if this was something that I really wanted to do. Sure enough, I lucked out where I called Freddie and he wanted me to get right back into the gym. One of the biggest things he worked on was my confidence and just getting right back in there and reevaluating my style.” 

“Because I was working with a different trainer at the time. And it was pretty neat because I was to continuously change and constantly learn about things. Being able to have the opportunities of sparring against someone like Rodel Mayol, I can’t take any of those sparring sessions back because there was a lot of pain involved, a lot of tears, and a lot of injuries I am sure I am going to feel down the line. But I can’t take any of it back because I have so much things that I can refer to and so many things I can relate back to. I understand so much now compared to what I did during my first loss, my second loss. I don’t take any of it back because there’s so much more to look forward to.”

 

“In my martial arts school, my teacher Keith Sheppard would always say, ‘Step out the door and you face ten-thousand foes’ and that’s how it feels like whenever anyone aspires to be someone in boxing. When you go out there and you have your name out there, you’re being attacked at all different angles; inside of the ring, outside of the ring. Going into this fight, what motivates me most is just being able to have my name just continuously grow and have more people being aware of it. Stepping into a different country and fighting in the girl’s hometown, it only makes me want to just push more. Even though the day is hard, just go out there and push yourself. I feel very motivated, very excited about this, and I feel like I am fighting up instead of fighting down. I feel like it’s almost hard to be in that position constantly instead of always being content. Because there is a whole bunch of different scenarios that I could always go into, it just inspires me. I’m looking for good things and I’m sure my opponent, I know she is hungry for a win, especially in her hometown. But for me, I feel like I am better and I just want to go out there and show my stuff.”