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<\/p>\nThe phones rang at the Main Events promotional offices in the late 1990s, and Jolene Mizzone sat at the front desk taking calls and typing letters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t care about boxing,\u201d the one-time receptionist tells Uncrowned. Her knowledge of the sport was limited to \u201cthe big ones.\u201d This meant Evander Holyfield. It meant Mike Tyson.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI just needed a job,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Boxing has a way of pulling people in, though, and soon it pulled her in too.<\/p>\n
Mizzone eventually moved into fighter relations and logistics \u2014 booking travel, arranging hotels and managing transportation. She set up chairs at shows, arranged fighter medicals, and even drove athletes back and forth from the airport. At events, boxers leaned over and told her what to look out for: A right hand here, a wrong step there. Her education was in and around the ring as much as it was an office.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting to know these guys outside of the ring is really what caught my attention,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
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That was the hook. Mizzone wasn\u2019t just running schedules. She wanted to help these young athletes realize their wildest dreams. \u201cI knew I would just love to see these young guys that I started working with, go up the ladder and become world champions,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
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Evander Holyfield fought in some of boxing’s biggest bouts of the 1990s.<\/p>\n
(Focus On Sport via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Behind the scenes, Kathy Duva \u2014 who ran longtime boxing promotional entity Main Events after her husband Dan\u2019s passing in 1996 \u2014 entrusted Mizzone with more, eventually telling her to book fights, and not just travel. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be where I am today without Kathy,\u201d Mizzone says of her mentor.<\/p>\n
Another guiding voice was Hall of Fame matchmaker Russell Peltz, who urged her to trust her gut \u2014 advice that would guide her to the top.<\/p>\n
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Mizzone earned her way up the same way the fighters did \u2014 the hard way. From receptionist to confidante, and from confidante to matchmaker. Until, perhaps inevitably, the boss.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel that I\u2019ve earned the title,\u201d says Mizzone, now the president of surging agency Fighters First Management and an inductee into the Atlantic City Boxing Hall of Fame later this month.<\/p>\n
Her rise mirrors boxing itself.<\/p>\n
Boxers start in obscurity, learning from coaches until they prove themselves when their name is called.<\/p>\n
Mizzone did the same. She entered as an outsider, but stayed, fought for her place, and became a trusted voice to icons like Arturo Gatti and Evander Holyfield.<\/p>\n
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On fight nights in Atlantic City, the raucous, smoky and electric Boardwalk Hall shook like few arenas in the sport at that time.<\/p>\n
When Gatti walked to the ring, there were few things like it as an expectant crowd braced for blood. His fights weren\u2019t just events \u2014 they were guarantees that war was about to ensue.<\/p>\n
His loss to Ivan Robinson in 1998, and two of the three-fight series with Micky Ward, all won Fight of the Year at Boardwalk Hall \u2014 a venue Gatti helped keep alive as one of Main Events\u2019 most bankable stars in the post\u2013Holyfield era. Live crowds in the arena, together with HBO audiences at home, were glued to him. He reliably lived up to his nickname, “Thunder,” fighting through pain to gain worldwide acclaim. His gritty style \u2014 part boxer, mostly brawler \u2014 made Atlantic City feel like sacred ground for fight fans.<\/p>\n
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Now enshrined in the Hall of Fame, the late Gatti remains revered around the fight world. And Mizzone saw it all up close.<\/p>\n
During one particular fight week in Atlantic City, officials checked Gatti\u2019s weight. He was drained and irritable, focused only on the scale. \u201cHe didn\u2019t say anything to me,\u201d Mizzone remembers, noting from experience with Fernando Vargas that fighters often kept to themselves when cutting weight.<\/p>\n
Gatti was no different. He, too, made weight and left without saying a word to anybody.<\/p>\n
But, five minutes later, Mizzone\u2019s phone rang.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello?\u201d she answered. It was Arturo.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry I didn\u2019t say hi,\u201d he said. \u201cI was just really cranky.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Mizzone didn\u2019t know what to say. \u201cWho does that?\u201d she thought. Most fighters don\u2019t circle back after a miserable cut. Gatti did. He wanted her to know she mattered.<\/p>\n
For Mizzone, it was proof that fighters let their guard down around her. She was trusted.<\/p>\n
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Arturo Gatti (L) and Micky Ward lit up Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall back in 2003.<\/p>\n
(John Iacono via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
And Gatti wasn\u2019t the only one. Stories like that piled up over the years.<\/p>\n
Lennox Lewis was the easiest Mizzone worked with, she says. He wanted a ping pong table in his suite, and when someone on his own team swapped it for a pool table without him knowing, he walked in and deadpanned: \u201cSo much for ping-pong.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there was Holyfield \u2014 one of \u201cthe big ones\u201d Mizzone only knew by name when she first took the receptionist job, but who became part of her day-to-day reality once she was on the inside. Considering where she started, being around him was a reminder of how far she\u2019d come.<\/p>\n
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To Mizzone, these moments revealed who fighters really were: Not just elite athletes capable of winning championship belts under the brightest of lights, but human beings with quirks, tempers and soft edges. Seeing them at their rawest shaped how she dealt with boxers, and why she came to believe that the hardest lessons come through adversity.<\/p>\n
Having worked in the sport for close to 30 years, Mizzone is now a bridge between eras, from yesteryear\u2019s Hall of Famers to today\u2019s fast-rising sluggers.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of fighters today seem more pampered,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care if you were Marvin Hagler or Sugar Ray Leonard \u2026 you had adversity back then. And you need that now because it only makes you that much stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s part of why she speaks so fondly of the sport\u2019s latest menace, Brian Norman Jr.<\/a>, who is her WBO welterweight world champion.<\/p>\n Norman is a \u201cthrowback,\u201d according to Mizzone, and he\u2019s come up the hard way.<\/p>\n WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr. is one of the top young stars in American boxing.<\/p>\n (Steve Marcus via Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"LAS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cbb35aa0-4ca1-11f0-9277-91fcc0318955.jpeg\"\/)
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