Layla McCarter: A Warrior's Journey

Early on Layla McCarter took the warrior’s road.



You know, that long dusty path they talk about in Japanese samurai movies where a person decides to learn the warrior’s craft instead of having it handed to them like a birthright.



That’s McCarter.



In the beginning of her journey the spunky girl from the Northern California and now Las Vegas got off to a rough start. Before she could blink an eye she had four losses and only one win.



She took her lumps early traveling from town to town, barely able to eat and in the early going without a boxing trainer.



Now, 10 years later, after grinding out a career and learning the finer points of the sweet science, McCarter meets Spain’s Lolly Munoz (8-4-1) for the vacant GBU lightweight title on Friday Aug. 15, at the Orleans Casino in Las Vegas. It will be contested at three-minute rounds.



“It’s much harder to get fights,” says McCarter (30-13-5, 7 KOs), a very innocent looking person with a quick smile and short haircut who already has the WBA title. “There’s no one in the U.S. that wants to fight, that’s why we had to go to Spain to find somebody.”



Munoz surprisingly accepted the fight. And when McCarter looked into her next opponents record she found that the Spaniard’s losses were in other countries against the hometown girl.



“She must be pretty good,” McCarter, 29, says, adding that she admires that self-confidence to go to another fighter’s hometown or country. “Nobody wants to fight her in Europe so she took the fight.”



McCarter remembers when she was 19 and full of fight, a little bit of anger and a lot of energy. She remembers taking fights against fighters she didn’t know and remembers trusting the promoters and matchmakers who offered those “easy fights.”



One of those so-called easy fights took place in 1999, when a Los Angeles promoter called McCarter to set up a fight against some girl called Laura Serrano. They assured her that it was an easy fight and the other girl only had one previous fight.



“She was 4-0 and undefeated but they didn’t tell me that,” said McCarter, adding that the fight took place at the Inglewood Forum.



To make matters worse, the promoters didn’t give her meal money after the weighing and there was McCarter with her friend and only two dollars between them. They spotted a Taco Bell and looked at the menu.



“I picked out a seven-layer burrito from Taco Bell because it looked like the most nutritious thing on the menu,” laughs McCarter. “The next day they gave me my meal money two hours before the fight. A lot of help that was.”



It was the fight against Serrano that opened boxing fan’s eyes. The Mexican fighter was supposed to run over the newcomer. Instead, it was a firefight that saw the large Mexican crowd at the Inglewood Forum cheering for McCarter in the four round bout.



Though McCarter lost by split-decision, she proved to many in attendance that she could indeed fight. The raw tools were there in full evidence and the crowd of mostly Latinos booed the decision.



“She (Serrano) cried because they booed her,” said McCarter of Serrano who later became a lightweight world champion too. “She never liked me after that.”.

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