LOGAN SQUARE — Beads of sweat linger on Olivia Curry’s face, her hair falling out if its ponytail, as she sits on the side of the boxing ring and catches her breath.

Curry is cooling off after a recent 30-minute, 10-round sparring session with other elite women boxers flown in by her coach to prepare her for a world title fight this month.

“I get nervous, but I feel confident about the actual fight once the bell rings,” Curry said.

Curry, 35, is a professional boxer out of Unanimous Boxing Gym, 2764 N. Milwaukee Ave., who is vying for her first two world titles in a unified middleweight championship match against Australia’s Kaye Scott Sep. 19 in Detroit.

At 160 pounds and taller than some other fighters at 5-foot-9, Curry is excited to be elevating women’s boxing. She’s even more thankful to be representing Chicago for the upcoming fight, made possible by her coach, Trinidad Garcia, who is manager and owner of Unanimous Boxing Gym.

“I’m trying to bring the crowd with me, that Midwest vibe,” Curry said. “Boxing is so interesting, and place is really important. People rep their hometowns, their home states, their home countries, their backgrounds and ethnicities in a way that you don’t see in other sports. … I really want to do well for Chicago and bring some belts home.”

Olivia Curry spars at Unanimous Boxing Gym, 2764 N. Milwaukee Ave., in Logan Square on Aug. 27, 2025. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

Curry, whose last fight was in April 2024, has a record of 7-2 with two knockouts as a professional boxer since 2021. Her upcoming fight, hosted by Salita Promotions, will see the winner given the World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council middleweight titles, both of which are vacant, according to the professional boxing organizations.

Leading up to the fight, one can find Curry in the Logan Square gym two to three times a day, working with Garcia and other fighters to perfect her strikes, blocks and controls. When the bell goes off, she’s ready, quick on her feet with both arms up.

“Both hands, go, Olivia, fight out of it, fight out of it, chin up,” Garcia yells at her from the sidelines. “I want these last punches.”

Olivia Curry spars at Unanimous Boxing Gym, 2764 N. Milwaukee Ave., in Logan Square on Aug. 27, 2025. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

Olivia Rose Curry talked with her coach, Trinidad Garcia, during a sparring session at Unanimous Boxing Gym, 2764 N. Milwaukee Ave., in Logan Square on Aug. 27, 2025. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

Garcia, who opened his gym in 2016 and manages professional boxers under Unanimous Management, has worked with Curry on all her fights and sees the upcoming one as potential history in the making, he said.

Because Curry has no world titles under her name and her last big fight was canceled, it was tough to get her a match, Garcia said. But after he persistently called Mark Taffet, former head of HBO Sports and now manager of Olympic women boxers, every day at the same time for almost three months, Taffet found a fighting opportunity for Curry.

“Getting one of [the boxing titles] is considered one of the hardest things to do — we’re fighting for two of them,” Garcia said.

The possibility of obtaining the world titles is exciting, but Curry’s goal is also to level the boxing playing field for women and propel fighters like herself to higher weight classes that can bring in more money and attention. Doing so could inspire younger women to get into the sport, Garcia said.

And Curry has proved that she’s ready for that pressure, her coach said.

“When we train for fights, she’s so dedicated that she flew out to Disney World with me, my wife and my kids, so we didn’t miss training. … We trained there,” Garcia said. “I could not have asked for a better fighter.”

Olivia Curry chats with fellow women boxers at Unanimous Boxing Gym, 2764 N. Milwaukee Ave., in Logan Square on Aug. 27, 2025. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

Female boxing seems to be growing in popularity over the past decade, in part because more companies like Salita Productions are scheduling more fights. Curry sees the increase as a “weird period of growth” that could make the sport on par with men’s boxing within the next two decades.

“Promoters have finally started to see there’s money in female boxing,” she said. “But we’re still not paid equally. We’re still not given the same opportunities. Like, some of these guys who are professionals, they have been boxing since they were 6 years old. It’s still pretty rare to see little girls in the gym, but it’s starting, so it’s cool to be at the forefront, and maybe in 20 years, it’s going to be a lot more common.”

When Curry’s not wearing her boxing gloves and working up a sweat, she is a professional film editor and director for Chicago production company Picture North. While she admits it’s a challenge to balance her careers, her love for both makes the effort worth it.

Olivia Curry spars at Unanimous Boxing Gym, 2764 N. Milwaukee Ave., in Logan Square on Aug. 27, 2025. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

Originally from Ohio, Curry has lived in the Chicago area since she was 18, when she moved to Evanston to study film at Northwestern University. She started taking kickboxing, boxing and Muay Thai at the Evanston Boxing Gym during an emotionally and mentally challenging time in her life, which gave her a healthy outlet and helped with her insomnia, she said.

Years later, the sport has given Curry a sense of community and discipline that transfers to other aspects of her life.

“It’s given me a community of people that I really, truly love, who are very different from me, from all over the city, the country, with different backgrounds, socioeconomic, educational levels,” Curry said. “It brings you together with people in a way that other things can’t.”

Curry’s fight will be live streamed on DAZN. For more information, click here.

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