MIA ST JOHN
Mia St John thought trying to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of boxing was difficult enough but, as Matt Christie discovers, nothing could prepare her for the horror of losing a child
The legend of women’s boxing opens up about the horrors of her past
LONG before her schizophrenic son committed suicide, Mia St John became a boxer. Not an ordinary one. A pretty one. A female one. A lipsticked, powdered and painted one who would change the face of women’s boxing.
She turned professional aged 29 in 1997, shortly after Julian’s seventh birthday, and retired in 2016, two years after the voices in his head persuaded him to die. As feel-good stories go, this is right at the bottom of the pile, but it’s a tale that St John feels compelled to tell. Today she is 50 years old, strong but forever broken, and looking back is her only way of constructing a future, at least for now.
The attractive face is still intact but she positions her cap so a mere nod can hide it should emotion strike, and starts at the beginning. St John tells Boxing News that taekwondo was her original combat sport of choice, and she considered waiting around to go for gold at Sydney 2000, when the discipline would be introduced to Olympic competition. “But by then, I thought I’d be too old,” she recalls. She switched to boxing, and while fighting as an amateur she noticed future rival Christy Martin appearing on Mike Tyson undercards and sent Don King a letter hoping to get signed. And just like that, she claims, the contract was hers. Eight wins later she joined up with King’s rival promoter, Bob Arum, who spotted something he liked about the voluptuous slugger the moment he set eyes on her. The skimpy pink uniforms were his idea, and her early persona, all boobs and mascara, was created.
WHEN I SPOKE TO HIM ON THE PHONE THAT DAY HE THOUGHT SOMEBODY WAS TRYING TO MURDER HIM”
➤ It was Arum’s plan to make her the polar opposite of Martin, who was riding high on the back of her rough and tough “Coalminer’s Daughter” image and no shortage of ability. While Martin was already on the pages of Sports Illustrated, St John, in obvious contrast, would soon grace the cover of Playboy.
The novice boxer regularly fought immediately after comedy heavyweight Eric “Butterbean” Esch’s latest offering had got the crowd in a party mood, but long before it could interfere with the serious business of a Top Rank main event. The industry viewed the Californian as little more than a gaudy sideshow, and her rivals, like Martin and Lucia Rijker, didn’t take kindly to her Top Rank platform – built purely on sex appeal – lifting her to prominence.
“I thought it was really unfair,” St John, of Mexican descent, explains about those early days as a prizefighter. “My peers knew my background, and I’m a business person, we all are. As amateurs we fight for free, and I was fighting for years for free. I made the decision that I was going to turn pro and I was going to start making a living. Every fighter has that right. So why was I criticised that I went with big promoters? Wasn’t that a no-brainer? Who wouldn’t do that? Are they mad because they couldn’t and I could? Lucia Rijker was very upset with me for many years about it, but now we’re friends and she apologised. Back then it was really hurtful.”
While her looks had got her noticed, they also played havoc with her mission for respect. A blessing and a curse, some might say.
“I would never say my looks are a curse because I was able to get pretty far with my looks, to get on the cover of Playboy and get all the media attention I did on the big talk shows,” she counters. “Yeah, that had a lot to do with my looks. That’s not a curse. To me, I was very lucky and I was in the right place at the right time. I was blessed that my family brought me to this country and I made money in this country, and I had success and fame in this country. It was for a reason, and I now know what that reason is.”
In a better world, the reason would be the enormous role she played – alongside Martin, Rijker, Laila Ali and Jane Couch – in eventually making women’s boxing creditable in the modern age. In a happier story, the reason for proving her toughness and skill over 65 fights, travelling the world with Julian alongside her, graduating from bill-opener to billtopper and splitting a pair of bouts with Martin along the way, would be to open the door for the likes of Claressa Shields, Nicola Adams and Katie Taylor to become stars today. But St John doesn’t want to talk about that. She wants to talk about her son. St John admits to loving Julian, who died in a mental health hospital on November 23 2014, a little too much. Every parent, at least any worthy of being called one, can empathise with that feeling of bursting at the seams with insane affection for their offspring. But St John insists she couldn’t stop thinking about Julian, who was fathered by American TV star Kristoff St John, from the moment he was born. Not even for one second. Not when she was fighting. Not during the countless photoshoots, and most certainly not now, three years after he left her behind. St John had achieved a degree in mental health years before it was clear Julian had schizophrenia, a chronic disorder that makes the sufferer lose touch with reality and, in the worst cases, creates multiple personalities and voices battling for prominence in one mind. “We knew something was wrong, but he finally had a formal diagnosis at 17,” she explains. “It confirmed my greatest fear in my life. It’s been all my money, all my time, researching for medication on something that would work. I went through countless doctors, and I spent thousands. I knew there was no cure, but I was searching for something that would save my son’s life. We went through medication after medication, hospital after hospital. I got the best doctors in the world, I got the best hospitals in the world. I spent every dime I had to save my child’s life. “Ultimately, four years ago, I placed him in a hospital that I was very unhappy with so I ended up taking him out of the hospital…” St John’s voice breaks, she holds her face, but she won’t stop, she has to explain, she has to confess. “But then the family got so upset with me because he tried to take his life outside the hospital, so I put him back in the hospital.” And it’s there he would die. St John had no choice but to take him back, of course. Julian, a brilliant artist whose work sold for thousands of dollars, would spend time befriending the homeless, yet he’d become addicted to meth in a bodged attempt to escape his demons. When he returned to the hospital, Mia would speak to her son every day, and their last conversation, only minutes before the end, will haunt her forever. “When I spoke to him on the phone that day he thought somebody was trying to murder him. I tried to tell him it was in his mind, but he was in denial.
‘No mom, no mom,’ he said. What schizophrenics don’t realise is the voice and themselves are one so they really think someone is trying to murder them. That’s why it’s so crucial that they are watched, 24-7. That’s why we paid the hospital, so they could look after him 24-7. When he was at home, I was terrified I’d go to sleep and wake up with him hanging in the garage.”
St John paid for surveillance and investigation into the hospital she is now completely certain failed to carry out their duties. She is positive a carrier bag, the suicide weapon, should have been discovered before her “gorgeous, eccentric, beautiful” son wrapped it around his head. She’s convinced that the mandatory checks they were supposed to be carrying out every 15 minutes had lapsed to hours, and she knows, from toxicology reports, that Julian had not taken the medication that was designed to unclutter his mind.
“I phoned him at 12:11 [pm] and by the time we got off the phone it was 12.21. At 12.23 he walked into the bathroom and took his life. I had talked him out of it so many times but that was the one day I couldn’t. Of course I blame myself. I said the wrong thing. I must have done. But I have to accept that the universe has a plan, and that was my son’s time. And I will always be mad at the universe for taking my child.”
As warned, this is a bleaker than bleak story. For a long time all St John wanted to do was follow her son out of this cruel world but, so far, the ultimate bad ending has been resisted. Mia has her sister, her daughter Paris, and the unbreakable bond with Julian, to thank for that. For the rest of her days, she will spread the word of mental disease through her son’s foundation, help those who suffer from torment, while exposing institutions that do not. “If I don’t do something, another mother will go through what I’m going through now and I don’t wish this upon my worst enemy. My son was my whole life and I feel like, without him, I would be okay not waking up in the morning, very much okay. But I feel like, now, I have to wake up in the morning, I have people to help. “I have my son’s art studio which I turned into a free centre for anyone suffering from mental health issues, and to take in the homeless. That’s what I do every day, and that’s all I want to do. There was a point after my son died I told my sister that I could not go on without my son, and that I was ready to take my own life. Her response was, ‘You can’t be so selfish. If you don’t want your life then give it away.’ I was confused. She said, ‘Since you don’t want your life, give it to someone who does’.”
Nothing, it seems, will put a dent in Mia St John. At least not one that the eye can see. Once just a pretty face, a gloved-up gimmick in a pink costume that the boxing world refused to take seriously, St John is now seen as a trailblazer for the female code. But far better than that, she’s the mother who made sure her son’s death did not go to waste.