Boxing Diva To Boss Lady: Renee Aiken’s Winning On Her Own Terms

Two decades in New York City jails will leave its mark on you. The uniforms – so uncomfortable, so drab – the cold roundness of the bars, the perfectly imperfect symmetry, the unquestionably defined lines of the place itself. From the way you dress to the way you carry yourself, even to the way you speak, an indelible sign, like an unyielding bruise, lingers long after you’ve made it out.

For Renee Aiken, that mark is most evident in her work.

It’s evidenced by an almost otherworldly ability to handle rough, forward, not-to-be-messed-with men. An ability to be the only woman in the room and yet, remain supremely confident in herself and her aptitude. An ability to shine, no matter the circumstances.

“Doing” 20 years, as Aiken put it, marks you, teaches you plenty of hard-earned lessons. But they’re lessons that the Corrections Officer-turned boxing promoter is thankful for, that she puts to use every single day.

***

Aiken speaks often of circles, ironic for a woman who makes her living just beyond the ring.

Her two decades in corrections, working in a number of capacities across New York City, for instance, produced a circle, not often revisited by the Queens native though. After walking away from corrections, it was the circle of Monte “Two Guns” Barrett. Then it was Ira Glass and the circle of Don King’s production company. And before all of that, before the cells and bars and mats and gloves, it was the circle of her family, a young life spent in “the hood,” the grit she bore before she ever even donned a uniform and a badge.

“I’m the type of person, you can put me in the White House, or you can put me in the projects and I’m going to make it work.”

Most recently, Aiken has set to building out her own circle.

Aiken took advantage of a handful of connections – a girlfriend whose husband worked for Don King Productions, a friendship with Mike Tyson’s sister and a family member who knew Barrett personally – and a deep enjoyment of the world of boxing to finally close the book on her work in corrections in 2006.

At first, it was just hanging out. Aiken would attend fights as a friend, as a guest, supporting one fighter or another – her nephew, Zab Judah, just so happens to be a pro boxer with 42 wins and a handful of championships to his name, though he’s become known more of late for his decision-making outside the ring than his exploits in it – just soaking up all the entertainment that fisticuffs had to offer.

But when she got hooked up with Barrett, joining onto his entourage as a personal assistant, she was finally able to make her first foray into the business of boxing.

***

It hasn’t been an easy road for Aiken, of course, with success coming in fits and starts. The first iteration of her business, Diva-Rize-N, was actually the marriage of two separate companies, one belonging to Aiken, one belonging to a connection of a connection.

Envisioning opportunity, the pair set their sights on D.C.’s boxing scene.

But nothing was as easy as they hoped, and their first show wound up not an unmitigated disaster, but nothing. It never happened. Despite all the time and effort invested, the weigh-ins and work both by Aiken and her cohort and the fighters and their crews, the cards never came to pass.

A hurricane shut down the city.

“Everybody was evacuated from D.C. and so my show ended up not happening,” she said, exasperated even now.

Tough to take, of course, but these things happens. So it goes. Time for a take two.

“We ended up pushing it to another date. We did everything again, I was at the venue to go check the ring was up – and the police storm into the building.”

The night prior, a patron had been assaulted in the club where Aiken and Diva-Rize-N were getting set to put on their show. Laws in D.C. state that if a crime occurs in a building, it must be shut down for a minimum of two days following.

Aiken was ready to give up. But, as always seems to be the case when life seems to left us high, dry and with nowhere else to turn – an opportunity appeared. Another connection asked for help putting together a show in the Catskills.

Deterred, but cautiously optimistic, Aiken agreed.

The show was a success. The Boxing Diva was born.

***

This year, Aiken felt a change was in order.

Diva-Rize-N, her baby, needed an update. Boss Lady Promotions LLC is now your premiere one-stop shop for all your boxing promotional needs. The so-called Boxing Diva has taken a step away from the matchmaking world, moved closer to the promotion side of things.

She’s still matchmaking, as intriguing – and often second-guessed – a job as any in the world of pugilism. Aiken can put hours into researching fighters, trying to find footage, studying styles, and the result still won’t be to the liking of some.

Boxing is, by nature, unpredictable. Sure, there are favorites heading into any bout. But two uber-athletic men or women, trained to a keen edge and told “there’s your payday, go knock them out” – the strange and the unexpected are, well, expected.

For her most recent show, for instance, the first Pro-Am boxing match in New Jersey, put on with the blessing and backing of Trenton Mayor Eric Jackson, Aiken, aka the New Boss Lady, set up several bouts, the most intriguing of which paired the dominant and deliberate Chazz Witherspoon (36-3-0) with Carlos Sandoval (9-11-1).

Despite the fact that both fighters came in sporting significant win streaks – Witherspoon had TKO’d five, Sandoval had emerged victorious six times, with one KO – Witherspoon was expected to crush Sandoval (all of Sandoval’s prior fights came in Mexico where the competition is, often, less well vetted and, in turn, less intense).

And crush Sandoval he did, to the dismay of some. But for Aiken, the result wasn’t a disappointment. Far from it. To the Boss Lady, Witherspoon’s electrifying TKO of Sandoval was just a part of the show, just added another element of that fun, that entertainment that brought someone like her, once a fighting neophyte, to boxing in the first place.

“They want to see the blood, they want to see the glory,” Aiken said of the fans. “They want to see all of that.”

***

Being a woman in the world of boxing isn’t easy. But Aiken has her ways of handling the unruly and the uncouth.

The Boxing Diva is so-called for a reason, after all.

But Diva isn’t just a nickname meant to speak to her no-nonsense approach, her larger-than-life personality. She’s not haughty, not temperamental. She’ll put her foot down, has on many an occasion – such is the life of a woman in a man’s world – but she sees value in the nickname not for the more bombastic aspects of the word, but more, the spiritual connotations she sees in it.

“When you look up diva, you know, they’re spoiled – and I’m not any of that at all.”

To Aiken, Diva speaks to her inner strength, her innate power, the wherewithal that has allowed her to take the lessons learned from 20 years spent in and around prisons, and apply it to an industry like boxing, where, even as female combatants gain traction as legitimate athletes and contenders, some of the sport’s top competitors, fighters like Kali Reis and Alejandra Jimenez, former stars like Leila Ali and touched-by-tragedy Christy Martin, still struggle to gain the world’s attention and, in many instances, to make ends meet (search female boxers and you’re more likely to find a top-10 list of the hottest women in the sport than you are to find any useful information on the actual abilities of the aforementioned athletes).

Aiken exists within a sphere entirely separate from those female fighters, but the issues largely remain the same.

Men see her and assume she knows little. Advances, mediocre deals – Aiken’s seen it all, had it all fed to her along with a line she’d rather not repeat, the kind of line you usually hear in the shadows of a bar at 2am with the jukebox, and the night, winding down. And while she’s still learning the in’s and out’s of the ring, will always be learning those in’s and out’s, she’s already well-versed in the language of Boss Lady.

She’s been following the Presidential race closely. Watching the recent interview of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by singer Mary J. Blige, one exchange in particular stuck out to Aiken.

“[Blige] asked; ‘Do you find that it’s hard to be a boss and be liked when you’re a woman?’ And it’s very difficult. People will challenge you all the time.”

Aiken wasn’t comparing herself to the former Secretary of State and potential future leader of the free world, only noting that women face struggles of a similar ilk, no matter the particular circumstances. As Aiken put it, in her dealings with men, whether they be fellow promoters or matchmakers, trainers, entourage members or fighters themselves, she’s always forced to “set a precedent.”

“One thing that I’ve always done in this business is I’ve always demanded respect.”

Aiken will always be a Diva. Only maybe not the kind you usually think of. And as the updated moniker shows, the Diva has grown into something fierce, something to be respected, something not to be messed with.

***

Aiken lives her life in five-year intervals. The plan is to look five years ahead and hope, expect, know that by the time those five rotations around the sun are completed, she’ll be further ahead than she was before.

It’s gotten her this far. It’s gotten her from New York Corrections to retirement in Delaware, from Two Guns’ crew to Diva-Rize-N, to the here and now and the aptly named Boss Lady Promotions.

“My drive is different than the drive of others. Although it has been hard and it has been a struggle, I’ve been able to overcome a lot of adversity.”

So, sitting here today, fresh off a Saturday night show in New Jersey for which she served as a matchmaker, looking ahead to a future centered on promotions with shows already in the works in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, where does Aiken see herself in five years?

Ahead. That’s all.

No more. No less.

Further along that she was before. Better than she was before. Stronger than she was before. Working and growing and learning, all on her own terms.

“As long as I know in my mind that that’s where I want to be, then I probably will accomplish it.”