You’d be hard-pressed to find a boxer with better stories to tell than Plant City’s own Chevelle Hallback.
Hallback, who has been fighting professionally since 1997, shared plenty of those stories on Feb. 22 with everyone who came out to the Bing Rooming House Museum’s “Conversation with a Champion” event. That Q&A session, hosted by Improvement League President William Thomas Jr., was a part of the museum’s Black History Month programming and was free for anyone to attend.
The event came one day after women’s boxing legend Laila Ali gave Hallback a shout-out on ESPN’s First Take as a female fighter to watch, and Thomas opened the event by playing that clip for the audience. The two then launched the Q&A session with Thomas asking questions he had prepared in advance and Hallback responding with hard lessons learned or funny stories from throughout her career. The audience was also invited to ask her questions during the event.
Hallback went deep on just about everything.
She talked at length about how she became inspired to box at 7 years old, watching Muhammad Ali fight Michael Spinks, then started to chase that dream at 24 after watching Christy Martin and Deirdre Gogarty fight on the undercard of Mike Tyson-Frank Bruno II in 1996. She talked about starting training in Tampa as the only woman in her boxing gym, studying greats like Ali and Roy Jones Jr. in depth. She told the story of her first fight, in which she beat Connie Plosser in 30 seconds by TKO in 1997, and then talked about her first championship win the following year. She talked about the peaks of her career winning championship gold and making good on her “Fists of Steel” nickname, as well as the valley of going without a fight for five years as no one would challenge her. She talked about her comeback fight last September and the November rematch, both of which she won by unanimous decision and got back into the top 10 among female welterweights (Hallback is currently ranked fourth overall). She also discussed the business behind boxing, how management works, how title ownership works and how she’s been able to stay active in the sport for so long when many who started around the same time as her left the sport long ago.
“A person that doubts me, a person who tells me what I cannot do, that’s motivation in itself to me,” Hallback said. “You have to have a strong mind. It starts with the mind. You can’t allow anyone to tell you what you can and you can’t do because at the end of the day, there’s greatness in all of us.”
One of the audience questions, asked by James McDaniel, was about her plan for exactly three more fights and if the number held any significance. Hallback said that number directly relates to her last remaining goals as a pro fighter: to fight for a WBC title, fight in the contractually-obligated rematch and later end her career with a fight in Plant City. Her dream is to fight at the Florida Strawberry Festival grounds, perhaps even at the Wish Farms Soundstage in an outdoor fight like the classic Rumble in the Jungle.
Hallback was grateful for the opportunity to tell her stories at the Bing House. Events like this are actually part of what Hallback has in mind for her post-fighting career. She recently joined the Plant City chapter of Toastmasters and is honing her craft as a motivational speaker.
“I love this type of stuff,” Hallback said. “I think I was born for this.”
Anyone interested in booking her to speak at an event can contact her at chevellehallback@gmail.com.