I want you to take a second and just imagine
something for me. Okay. Close your eyes if you
have to. I want you to picture yourself stepping
into a professional boxing wing for the very
first time. Oh, wow. Terrifying. Right. You are
standing in your corner. Your hands are wrapped
tight in gauze and tape. The canvas under your
boots is hard, completely unforgiving. It's not
a trampoline, that's for sure. Exactly. The lights
above are blindingly bright, generating this
intense heat right on your shoulders. Outside
the ropes, the crowd is roaring. It's just this
chaotic wall of sound. And directly across the
ring, staring a hole right through you, is an
opponent whose sole objective for the night is
to render you unconscious. Which is a lot to
process. It is. Now usually when we hear stories
about professional athletes making their debut
in that kind of, you know, adrenaline -fueled
environment, we picture a teenager. Right. We
picture a 19 -year -old prodigy. Exactly. Or
maybe someone in their early 20s who has been
entirely consumed by the sport -punching heavy
bags since they were barely old enough to walk.
Yeah, the kids who basically grew up in the gym.
But I want you to imagine stepping through those
ropes. into that visceral, violent reality. Not
as a hungry teenager, but at nearly 30 years
old? I mean, it completely shatters the deeply
entrenched sports narratives we've all internalized,
doesn't it? Total. When you are staring down
the barrel of 30 in any professional athletic
endeavor, but specifically in combat sports,
the conventional wisdom dictates that your window
has completely closed. Right. The story we are
told is that your physical prime is either already
in the rear view mirror, or the sand is running
through the hourglass so fast that making a meaningful
impact is statistically impossible. Entering
the professional boxing ranks at that stage requires
a level of self -belief that most people would
categorize as totally unreasonable. And that
completely unreasonable self -belief is exactly
what we are exploring today. We are unpacking
the Wikipedia page of a fighter who looked at
that conventional wisdom, scoffed at it and proceeded
to forge one of the most unique legacies in modern
combat. sports. It's such a great deep dive.
It really is. We are talking about the incredible
Carolina Raquel Duer. Yes. Now if you are deeply
embedded in the boxing world, you might know
her by her monikers. She goes by LaTurca or the
absolutely brilliant Iron Barbie. Such a great
name. We are looking at a fighter who ultimately
racked up 29 professional fights, secured 20
wins, and captured world championships across
three different weight classes. Which is astounding
on its own. But what makes her story elevate
from just, you know, a great sports trivia answer
into a profound case study is the context of
who she is outside the ring. Right. This isn't
just a linear narrative about training camps
and weight cuts and title belts. It is a masterful
study of intersectional identity. Yeah, that's
the part that really hooked me. We are looking
at an Argentine woman of Syrian descent who is
deeply rooted in the Jewish community. She navigated
these profound ancient cultural backgrounds while
simultaneously bleeding and sweating in a world
of professional prize fighting. It's wild. She
shattered every arbitrary timeline the sports
world tries to enforce and she did it while representing
a crossroads of culture and faith that you almost
never see under the arena lights. Okay let's
unpack this because we really have to start at
the absolute beginning. Yeah we do. To really
understand the grit it takes to become a multi
-division world champion you have to look at
the soil she grew from. Carolina was born on
August 5, 1978. In Buenos Aires. In Buenos Aires,
Argentina. And her background is this beautiful
complex tapestry. She is the daughter of Syrian
immigrants, which makes her part of the Argentine
Syrian Jewish community. What's fascinating here
is we really need to pause and appreciate what
that specific community looks like in Buenos
Aires. OK, set the scene for us. Well, Argentina
has one of the largest Jewish populations in
the Americas, and the Syrian Jewish diaspora
within that is incredibly tight knit. There is
a massive emphasis on tradition, on family enterprise,
on cultural preservation. Carolina was deeply
embedded in those traditions from a very young
age. Yeah the sources say she attended the Jane
Najman Bialik primary school in Buenos Aires
which is a Jewish day school. Exactly and she
was an active participant in the Maccabi club.
Now for listeners who might not be familiar with
the Maccabi movement. What does that represent
in this context? So the Maccabi movement is this
international Jewish sports and community organization.
It's essentially the hub of athletic and social
life for Jewish youth in many countries. It's
where you go to play basketball or soccer and
really connect with your heritage. So she was
an athlete early on, but within this very structured,
community oriented environment. Furthermore,
she celebrated her bat mitzvah at the Iona Hebrew
Center, which is a noted in Buenos Aires. I have
to jump in here, because I've been to conservative
bat mitzvahs. Yeah. They are beautiful, deeply
spiritual, traditional ceremonies. Yeah. But
they do not exactly scream, you know, next stop,
Medicine Square Garden for a 10 -round bloodbath.
Exactly. The juxtaposition is completely jarring.
If you trace the trajectory of a young girl growing
up in a traditional immigrant community, attending
a conservative synagogue, learning Hebrew, participating
in the Maccabi club, the expected path is usually
higher education, family business, perhaps a
traditional profession. It rarely, if ever, leads
to a boxing gym in Buenos Aires. Yeah, that's
quite a pivot. There is a profound tension between
the quiet devotion of her religious upbringing
and the chaotic, visceral reality of a boxing
ring. And yet, she didn't abandon one identity
for the other. She synthesized them. And you
see that synthesis perfectly in the aliases she
adopted when she started fighting. Let's talk
about the nicknames, because they are iconic.
They really are. First, you have La Turca. Now,
in many parts of Latin America, individuals of
Middle Eastern descent, whether Syrian, Lebanese,
or otherwise, are colloquially referred to as
turko, or turka. Because early immigrants often
arrived carrying passports from the Ottoman Empire.
Exactly. Some might see it as a reductive label,
but she completely owned it. She walked to the
ring as La Turca, wearing her Syrian heritage
-like armor. It's an aggressive reclamation of
her identity. By claiming LaTurca, she forces
the boxing world and the Argentine public to
acknowledge exactly where she comes from before
the opening bell even rings. But then she has
this other nickname that I am just obsessed with.
Iron Barbie. Iron Barbie. Just think about those
two words slammed together. Yeah. You have Barbie,
this ultimate, almost stereotypical symbol of
conventional, pristine femininity. And it's attached
to iron unyielding, cold, industrial, unbreakable.
It's a masterclass in psychological framing.
Nicknames in combat sports aren't just marketing
tools. They dictate how an opponent perceives
you. Oh, for sure. If you walk in as the assassin
or the destroyer, you are leaning entirely into
the violence. By adopting Iron Barbie, she is
forcing everyone to deal with cognitive dissonance.
I love that. She's essentially telling her opponents,
I refuse to abandon my femininity to exist in
this violent space, but do not mistake my femininity
for fragility. I will break you. Wow. It forces
you as a spectator to confront whatever subconscious
biases you might have about what a female combat
athlete is supposed to look and act like. And
she wasn't just a catchy nickname either. She
was an absolute terror in the amateur ranks.
Let's look at her amateur record, because it
sets the stage for everything that follows. Let's
hear it. She fought 20 times as an amateur. She
won 19 of those bouts. Yeah. 19 out of 20. That
statistic is staggering. But let's break down
what an amateur boxing career actually looks
like, especially in Argentina, because it's very
different from the pros. Yeah, tell us about
that. Amateur boxing is about scoring points.
You are wearing headgear. The rounds are shorter,
usually two minutes instead of three for men,
though women's rounds are often two minutes across
the board anyway. The gloves have more padding.
The objective isn't necessarily to knock the
other person out, it's to land clean, undeniable
strikes that the judges sitting at ringside can
easily see. It's a game of physical chess played
at lightning speed. So to go 19 -1 in that environment?
What does that actually require? Is it just raw
power? No, raw power gets you disqualified or
out -pointed in the amateur. Really? Yeah. Because
if you're just head hunting, a smarter, faster
fighter will pepper you with jabs and rack up
the score. Going 19 and 1 means her fight IQ
was off the charts. Go ahead. It means she understood
distance, pacing, and defensive responsibility
better than almost anyone she faced. She wasn't
just surviving the chaos. She was managing it.
Managing the geometry of the ring? Precisely.
Yeah. is crucial. You don't get to 19 wins without
spending thousands of hours doing the unglamorous
work. Right. Jumping rope until your calves cramp,
hitting the speed bag until your knuckles bleed,
sparring against different styles. So she has
this incredible pedigree, this near flawless
amateur run, and then she decides to take the
headgear off, drop the padding from the gloves,
and turn professional. And this brings us back
to that staggering fact we teased at the start.
Yes. She turns pro in 2007. Born in 1978, turning
pro in 2007. Doing the math. She was 29 years
old. 29. Now, we touched on this briefly, but
I really want to press you on this. Is 29 actually
biologically too late to start boxing, or is
that just an entrenched sports myth she happened
to expose? It's a combination of biological reality
and systemic sports bias. Let's look at the biology
first. OK. Boxing is one of the most anatomically
demanding activities a human being can undertake.
When you hit your late 20s, your cellular recovery
time naturally slows down. Right. The micro traumas.
and your joints take longer to heal. Your fast
twitch muscle fibers, the ones responsible for
explosive speed and reaction time, begin a very
slow natural decline. So you're fighting an uphill
battle against time. Exactly. Most fighters want
to front load their careers in their late teens
and early 20s because they can recover from a
grueling eight week training camp in a matter
of days. At 29, your body holds on to the inflammation.
The aches stay with you longer. So she's fighting
her biology from day one. She is. But it's also
the systemic side. Promoters want to invest in
a 19 -year -old because they can build them up
over a decade. Sure, it's an investment. If you
walk into a promoter's office at 29 with zero
pro fights, they look at you as a liability.
They assume you have maybe a three -year window
before your body breaks down. Wow. So she wasn't
just fighting her opponents. She had to fight
the skepticism of every trainer, manager. and
promoter in Buenos Aires who looked at her driver's
license and said, thanks, but no thanks. And
the incredible thing is she actually silences
the doubters right out of the gate. She did.
She makes her pro debut in September 2007 and
gets a woman named Augustina Davaye Eibar. It's
a four round fight and Dewar wins it by unanimous
decision. A solid start. Then just three months
later in December, she fights Eibar again and
knocks her out in the third round. So she's 2
and 0. The late start doesn't seem to be a problem
at all. She's the Iron Barbie. She's unstoppable.
But professional boxing is a notoriously cruel
teacher. Yeah. Just when you think you have it
figured out, the sport introduces you to a new
level of suffering. And that suffering arrives
in 2008. If 2007 was the dream, 2008 was an absolute
nightmare. Let's look at the data for that year.
Right. On August 8, 2008, she travels to Club
Huracán in Tres Arroyos to fight Iván Anahí Córdova.
It's a four round fight and Carolina loses by
unanimous decision. All the judges saw her losing.
If we connect this to the bigger picture, a unanimous
decision loss early in your career is a wake
-up call. It means there is no controversy, no
bad judging, no lucky punch. You were simply
outboxed for 12 minutes. You have to go back
to the gym and completely re -evaluate your fundamentals.
So she goes back to the gym. She tries to correct
the errors. Less than two months later, on September
27, she steps back into the ring against Natalia
del Pilar Berga. And she loses again. But this
time, it's a majority decision loss. I want you
to explain that to the listener because the terminology
here is so important for understanding how agonizing
this must have been. In professional boxing,
there are three judges scoring the fight at ringside.
A majority decision loss means that two of those
three judges scored the fight in favor of your
opponent, but the third judge scored it a dead
even draw. So she didn't get blown out. She was
literally on the razor's edge. Exactly. It is
arguably more agonizing than getting knocked
out. Really? Oh, absolutely. Because a majority
decision means you were one round, maybe one
clean punches away from salvaging a draw. It's
been the next month awake at night replaying.
every single missed jab, every time you let your
hands drop for a second, knowing that if you
had just pushed 3 % harder in the third round,
your record wouldn't have a loss on it. It's
a psychological torture chamber. And she is still
stuck in that chamber when she takes her next
fight just two months later on November 29, 2008
against Yanina Natalia Acuna. And she loses for
a third time. Another four round majority decision
loss. Let's tally this up. She started at 29.
She is now 30 years old. Her professional record
is two wins and three losses, three straight
defeats. The walls have to be closing in at this
point. This is the exact crucible where 99 %
of athletic dreams go to die. Put yourself in
her locker room after that third loss. Yeah.
You unwrap your hands. Your knuckles are bruised.
Your face is swollen. You've sacrificed time
with your family. You've alienated yourself from
the traditional expectations of your community.
You've pushed your 30 -year -old body to the
absolute limit. And the result is a losing record.
Exactly. The whispers in the gym start. The community
members might be saying, with love, Carolina,
you tried. It was a noble effort. But maybe it's
time to come back to the real world. Right. I
can only imagine the well -meaning aunts and
uncles saying, You've had your fun, LaTurca.
Come work at the business. Settle down. And no
one would have blamed her for walking away. If
she quit at two and three, she would still be
a formidable woman who tried her hand at pro
boxing. The psychological weight of a three -fight
losing skid is crushing. I can't even imagine.
It makes you question not just your technique,
but your fundamental worth as a fighter. Do I
have a glass jaw? Am I too slow? Was I arrogant
to think I could start at 29? But she doesn't
walk away. And this is the moment this specific
decision in early 2009 where she transcends from
being just a boxer to becoming a legend. The
turnaround. Exactly. Yeah. Remember Janina, Natalia
Acuna, the woman who just handed Dewar her third
straight loss, pushing her to the brink of a
failed career. Yeah. Dewar doesn't go to a promoter
and ask for an easy rebound fight. She doesn't
ask for a tomato can to pad her stats. She demands
a rematch with Acuna. That is the essence of
a champion's mentality right there. She wanted
to run straight back into the fire that just
burned her. So April 4, 2009, they run it back.
Acuna versus Dewar 2. And Dewar wins. But it's
not a blowout. She wins by a four round split
decision. And she isn't satisfied with just evening
the score. On October 3, 2009, she fights Akuna
for a third time, a trilogy fight against a woman
she already lost to once. Right. And Dewar wins
the rubber match by another four round split
decision. We need to dissect this. What is a
split decision and what does it tell us about
the nature of these fights? So a split decision
is the most dramatic outcome in boxing. It means
two judges scored the fight for you and one judge
scored the fight for your opponent. It means
the fight was so incredibly close, so tightly
contested that the professionals sitting inches
from the action couldn't agree on who won. When
you have back -to -back split decision victories
against the same woman, it tells us that these
were absolute wars of attrition. Blood and guts
kind of fights. Exactly. There was no massive
skill gap where Dior just danced around her.
She had to stand in the center of the ring and
bite down on her mouthpiece. It means she had
to stay mentally locked in for every single second
of every single round. If you lose focus for
10 seconds and take a clean combination, you
lose the round on the judge's scorecards and
you lose the fight. To win two split decisions
requires sheer unadulterated willpower. She had
to analyze her 2008 loss to Akuna, correct her
mistakes, and implement a completely new game
plan against someone who walked into the ring
with the psychological high ground of knowing
they had already beaten her. She exercised her
demons in public, and coming out of that Akuna
trilogy, Dewar is a completely different animal.
The forging of Iron Barbie. Yes. The self -doubt
is gone, she knows she can swim in the deep waters,
and those two grueling victories spark a massive
run. In early 2010, she picks up two more unanimous
decision wins. Nice. And that momentum propels
her to a date with destiny. December 17th, 2010.
Doerr faces Loredana Piazza for the vacant world
boxing organization, the WBO female super flyweight
title. Let's contextualize this. The super flyweight
division means these women are fighting between
112 and 115 pounds. At that weight class, speed
is the primary currency. The punches come in
blistering combinations. And now she is fighting
for the WBO belt, which is one of the four major
recognized world championships in boxing, alongside
the WBA, WBC, and IBF. This is the pinnacle of
the sport. The absolute top. She fights Piazza
for 10 rounds. And remember, she's used to fighting
four or six rounds. Now she has to go 10 championship
rounds. That cardio demand is huge. And she wins.
A unanimous decision. The judges all agree. Carolina
Dewar is the champion of the world. The historical
significance here cannot be overstated. With
that win over Piazza, Carolina Dewar became the
eighth Argentine woman to hold a WBO boxing championship.
Amazing. That alone guarantees her a page in
the history books of a country that treats boxing
with a near religious fervor. But the second
milestone is the one that echoes far beyond Argentina.
Yes, tell us. She became the first Jewish woman
to ever hold a WBO crown. I want to really sit
with that for a second. Let's loop back to the
beginning of her story. from the halls of the
Jane Nodgman Bialik Primary School, from the
youth programs at the Maccabi Club, from reading
the Torah at the Iona Hebrew Center, to standing
in the center of a bloodstained canvas with a
massive leather and gold world championship belt
strapped around her waist. It is an unprecedented
cultural collision. Think about what that image
meant for the Syrian Jewish community in Buenos
Aires and for Jewish athletes globally. Historically,
the Golden Era The era of Jewish boxing was the
1920s and 30s in America fighters like Benny
Leonard and Barney Ross. But a Jewish woman in
the 21st century holding a major world title,
it was entirely unheard of. She broke an immense
invisible barrier. She really did. She proved
that deep cultural and religious roots do not
preclude you from marching the absolute apex
of a combat sport. And what's wild is that she
didn't just win the belt, take the photo op and
cash out. She did become a paper champion. No,
she was actually She became one of the most active,
dominant, fighting champions on the planet. If
we trace her reign from 2011 to 2012, her schedule
was relentlessly punishing. Most champions defend
their belt maybe twice a year if they are active.
It takes a massive toll on the body to go through
a championship training camp. Well, Dura defended
her title six times in two years. Six times?
That's absurd. Let's look at the murderer's row
of women she faced to keep that belt. March 2011,
she beats Aziza Ubaita by unanimous decision.
Just four months later, in July 2011, she fates
Jenji Fleiss, and Dewar destroys her. She gets
a first -round technical knockout. A first round
TKO in a world title fight is incredibly rare,
especially at 115 pounds. For the listener, a
technical knockout means the opponent didn't
necessarily get knocked unconscious, but the
referee had to step in and physically stop the
fight because the opponent was taking too much
undefended damage and was in serious danger.
To do that in the first round means Dewar came
out of the corner with absolute murderous intent.
She didn't feel the opponent out. She overwhelmed
her instantly. She keeps the momentum going.
In November 2011, she gets a third round TKO
against Maria Jose Nunes. then we hit 2012. Right.
She defends the bill three more times against
Milena Toronto, Karina Karlescu, and Marisa Johana
Portillo. And then at the end of 2012, she caps
off this insane run by facing Marcel Lacuna and
winning another 10 round unanimous decision.
When you look at the totality of that championship
run and you analyze her overarching fight record,
you get a very clear picture of her physical
mechanics and her tactical style. What does the
data show? Out of her 20 professional wins, 14
came by way of decision and six came by knockout.
What that tells a boxing analyst is that Dewar
was primarily an endurance heavy tactical vol
- puncher meaning she wore people down over time
rather than relying on one lucky punch precisely
she had the cardiovascular capacity of a marathon
runner to consistently navigate those deep waters
and win ten round unanimous decisions you have
to be able to throw combinations with the same
speed and velocity in round nine as you did in
round one it requires phenomenal conditioning
she was a ring general she dictated the pace
But as we saw with the TKO against Fleiss, she
wasn't just slapping for points. No, definitely
not. If her opponent showed weakness, if they
dropped their guard, Dewar possessed the finishing
power and the killer instinct to close the show
violently. She was a spectacularly well -rounded
champion. But eventually she essentially clears
out the Superflyweight division. She's beaten
everyone they put in front of her. So what does
a true competitor do? This up. They look for
a heavier challenge. In July 2013, she decides
to abandon the division she rules and move up
in weight to the bantamweight class. Now she
is fighting between 115 and 118 pounds. Right.
She challenges Mayra Alejandra Gomez for the
vacant WBO female bantamweight title, and she
wins it by a 10 round unanimous decision. She
is now a two division world champion. I really
want to emphasize how incredibly difficult it
is to move up a weight class and instantly win
a world title. Yeah, explain that, because three
pounds doesn't sound like a lot to the average
person. People hear three pounds and think it's
nothing, but in the lower weight classes, three
pounds is a massive percentage of your total
body mass. It completely alters the physics of
the fight. because the women naturally fighting
at 118 pounds are cutting down from 125 or 130.
They're significantly bigger. Exactly. They have
broader shoulders, thicker necks, and they hit
substantially harder. When you move up, you're
usually giving up a strength advantage. Right.
The challenge for Dewar was maintaining her super
flyweight speed and cardiovascular engine while
carrying the extra weight and figuring out how
to absorb punches from women who naturally possess
more power. And she did it. The fact that she
seamlessly transitioned to bantamweight and dominated
Gomez for 10 rounds, speaks volumes about her
physical foundation and her defensive brilliance.
She proved her skills scaled up. She defends
that bantamweight title in December 2013 and
again in July 2014. She is at the absolute peak
of her powers. She is a multi -division world
champion, an Argentine icon, and a pioneer for
her community. At the top of the mountain. And
right when most fighters would be screaming for
the biggest possible payday, looking for cross
-promotional megafights, Doerr does something
completely unexpected. Yeah. She puts the gloves
away. After her 2014 title defense, she steps
out of the ring to be become a mother. This introduces
such a profound human layer to her athletic narrative.
The decision to step away during your absolute
prime is incredibly rare in combat sports, because
the fear is that if you leave, you can never
get that magic back. Right. And we have to talk
about the physical reality of what she chose
to do. The immense physiological toll of pregnancy,
childbirth, and postpartum recovery cannot be
overstated, especially for an elite athlete.
Because a boxer's body is basically a sports
car. It's finely tuned for very specific functions.
Exactly. It is calibrated for explosive speed,
fast twitch muscle recruitment, and most importantly,
absorbing concussive impact. During pregnancy,
your body undergoes massive structural changes.
Your core muscles separate. Your cardiovascular
base completely shifts. Your body releases hormones
like relaxin, which literally loosens the ligaments
in your pelvis and joints. Wow. To undergo those
massive biological shifts and then to rebuild
that body, not just to look fit, but to return
to world -class championship -level fighting
conditioning is a monumental undertaking. It's
starting from below zero. Which makes what happens
next one of the most inspiring sequences in modern
boxing. Yeah. Because here's where it gets really
interesting. She didn't just have a child and
retire gracefully. No, she didn't. After stepping
away, after giving birth, after that grueling,
agonizing process of rebuilding her core, regaining
her cardio, and hardening her bones again. She
makes her return. On August 26, 2016, Carolina
Dewar steps back through those ropes. She faces
a tough Brazilian boxer named Aline Scaranello,
and they aren't fighting a tune -up bout. They're
fighting for the interim IBF World Bantamweight
title. For clarity, an interim title usually
happens when the current champion is injured
or unavailable to defend the belt, so the sanctioning
body creates an interim belt to keep the division
moving. The winner is universally recognized
as a world champion and usually guaranteed a
unification fight with the full champion later.
Right, so the stakes couldn't be higher. And
Dewar doesn't just squeak by with a cautious
decision. She absolutely dismantles Garinello.
In the seventh round, Dewar unleashes a barrage
of strikes, the referee steps in, and Dewar wins
by technical knockout. Yeah. She returns from
maternity leave and violently claims the IBF
World Title. That outcome is staggering. To return
to the professional ring after childbirth is
a massive achievement in itself. To return and
immediately fight for a world title is extraordinary,
but to win that world title by a late round technical
knockout, that is a definitive, terrifying statement
to the rest of the division. Why specifically
the seventh round stoppage? Why is that so impressive
to you? Because a seventh round TKO proves that
her physical endurance was completely undiminished.
It wasn't a lucky early knockout where she caught
Scarinello cold. Right. She spent six grueling
rounds wearing her opponent down, absorbing damage,
managing her oxygen, and maintaining intense
offensive pressure until Scarinello literally
couldn't defend herself anymore. Incredible.
It proved her punching power was intact, her
chin was intact, and her killer instinct was
as sharp as ever. It completely obliterates any
archaic narrative that motherhood somehow softens
a fighter's edge. For Dewar, it seemingly only
sharpened her resolve. She became more dangerous.
She was later elevated to the full IBF champion.
And from there, we enter the latter arch of her
career, which becomes a testament to unbelievable
longevity. Yeah, the later years. Now, she doesn't
stay undefeated forever. Boxing always exacts
its toll. She loses the IBF title in her first
defense in August 2017 to Maria Cecilia Roman
by a split decision. They run it back a year
later in August 2018 and Roman wins another split
decision. Notice the recurring theme here. Even
when she loses, she loses by split decisions.
Yeah, good point. She is never being blown out
of the water. She is always incredibly competitive,
always making the judges argue over who actually
won. Exactly. And she just keeps fighting. Most
fighters would lose those two title fights and
say, I'm 40 years old now. I won titles in multiple
divisions. I have a child. I'm done. Hang up
the gloves. Not do her. In October 2019, she
travels to enemy territory in Mexico to fight
Mariana Juarez for the WBC Bantamweight title.
She loses a unanimous decision, but goes all
10 rounds. Still going the distance. In November
2019, she fights to a 10 round draw against Marianela
Soledad -Ramirez. She picks up a win in August
2021. And then we hit the most recent fight listed
on her record. April 29, 2023, she fought Gabriella
Bouvier for the vacant interim WBC female super
bantamweight silver title. What weight class
was that? Super bantamweight. So she's moved
up again fighting between 118 and 122 pounds.
Wow. She loses a hard fought 10 round split decision.
But I want to remind the listener of her birthdate.
August 1978 in April 2023, Carolina Dewar was
44 years old. That's just wild. 44 years old,
stepping into a professional boxing ring, moving
up another weight class and going 10 rounds for
a WBC title. It is a phenomenal testament to
her absolute passion for the craft of boxing.
Think about the timeline. She turned pro in 2007
at age 29 when everyone told her it was too late.
16 years later, she is still fighting at a championship
level. Even in her final recorded bouts, she
wasn't taking exhibition matches or fighting
novices. She was fighting 10 -round title eliminators
against world -class contenders. And she was
losing by split decisions, which means at 44,
she was still technically and physically capable
of outboxing women a decade younger than her
for large portions of a fight. It's unbelievable.
It shows an athlete who was not solely motivated
motivated by the vanity of holding belts, but
by the pure intrinsic challenge of testing her
absolute physical and mental limits against the
very best in the world, over and over again.
And as if conquering the boxing world and rewriting
the rules of athletic aging wasn't enough, Dewar
also managed to carve out a completely unique
space for herself outside the ring. Let's talk
about the television stuff. Yes. Let's look at
her expansion into media and television, because
LaTurca was building her brand in some truly
wild, unexpected ways. In 2013, Right in the
middle of her WBO championship reign, she signs
up for a reality TV show in Argentina called
Celebrity Splash. Oh my goodness. Now, if you
aren't familiar with this global franchise, it
is a show that literally teaches celebrities
the art of high diving into an Olympic pool.
That's amazing. She was a contestant and she
made it to round two, part three. before being
eliminated. You have to laugh at the sheer absurdity
of the pivot there. Right, from dodging left
hooks to trying to execute a reverse pike off
a 10 meter platform. It's brilliant though. From
a brand building perspective, it is a fascinating
and highly effective move. Participating in a
mainstream, lighthearted reality show like Celebrity
Splash while she was actively defending her brutal,
violent boxing titles helped transition her.
Well, she went from being just a famous athlete
known strictly to hardcore boxing purists into
a broader mainstream cultural figure in Argentine
living rooms. It humanized her. Yeah, that makes
sense. It allowed the public to see the Iron
Barbie in a completely different different vulnerable
context. She was learning a new skill, facing
a completely different kind of fear, the fear
of heights and water, and participating in family
entertainment. It expanded her demographic exponentially.
And she didn't just stay in front of the camera
as a reality contestant. She moved behind the
microphone. In 2014, Dear began to announce boxing
on national public television in Argentina. She
literally became the broadcast voice of the sport.
Which is a transition that raises an important
question. about the life cycle of professional
athletes. How do you stay connected to the sport
that has defined your entire identity when you
know you can't fight forever? You have to find
a new avenue. Moving to the announcer's desk
is the smartest play you can make. And a fighter
of her specific caliber brings an incredibly
intimate, visceral knowledge of the ring to the
broadcast. Because she isn't just reciting stats.
She knows exactly what the fighters are feeling.
Exactly. When she sits ringside and watches two
fighters exchange blows, she isn't just describing
the action for the audience. She understands
the exact the exact cardiovascular strain the
fighter in the blue corner is feeling in round
eight. She recognizes the subtle tactical adjustments
a fighter makes when their lead hand gets tired.
She knows the psychology of suffering a deep
cut over the eye or the sheer panic of being
backed against the ropes by a heavier puncher.
She lived it. It allows her to translate the
violent reality of the sport to the audience
at home in a way a traditional broadcaster never
could. It built her a sustainable post -fighting
career while cementing her authority as a premier
voice in Latin American boxing. And she clearly
caught the television bug. because the list of
her appearances just keeps going. In 2014, she
appeared on an intense physical competition show
called Combat, acting as a trainer and mentor
for the green team. Giving back. And even more
recently, in 2023, the exact same year she was
still fighting for a WBC silver title at age
44, she appeared as a contestant on the Challenge
Argentina, El Disafio, though she was the first
eliminated there. When you synthesize all of
this media presence alongside her boxing record,
you start to see a much broader, much more fascinating
portrait of Carolina Dewar. Yeah, it's not just
about fighting. She isn't just a boxer. She is
a multifaceted entertainer, a coach, a broadcaster
and a deeply curious public personality who continuously
seeks out new arenas to test herself. Exactly.
Whether he's coaching a team of young athletes
on combat, analyzing a championship bout on national
television or subjecting herself to the physical
obstacle courses of the challenge, she demonstrates
a relentless insatiable desire to push beyond
her comfort zone. It's that same drive. It's
the exact same psychological profile that allowed
her a walk into a boxing gym at 29 years old.
She fundamentally refuses to be defined by a
single label. So we have covered a massive amount
of ground here today. We've explored the rich
cultural foundations of her Syrian Jewish upbringing.
We dissected the rocky agonizing start to her
pro career and those three three devastating
early losses. The Crucible. We tracked her championship
glory across the Superflyway and Bantamweight
divisions. We marveled at her incredible post
-maternity knockout return, her unbelievable
longevity fighting into her mid -40s, and her
expansion into a beloved television personality.
Looking at the totality of the life and career
of Carolina Raquel Duerre, what is the ultimate
takeaway? The ultimate takeaway is that Carolina
Dewar is a living, breathing masterclass in defying
expectations. Every single time the prevailing
narrative, the sports science, or the cultural
norms suggested she should fail, she simply rewrote
the script. She successfully balanced distinct,
deeply rooted cultural identities while dominating
a space that is almost never associated with
her background. She proved that the path to absolute
greatness is rarely, if ever, a straight line.
You can start your professional athletic career
at 29 years old. You can lose three consecutive
fights in your first year. Which would break
most people. It would. You can step away from
your physical prime to start a family. And you
can still return to become a multi -weight world
champion, a media star, and a historic icon.
Her legacy is undeniable proof that sheer resilience
adaptability, and an irrational belief in yourself
are infinitely more valuable than following society's
conventional timelines. That is incredibly powerful.
I want to turn this directly to you the listener.
Take a moment and think about your own life,
your own goals, and the arbitrary timelines you
might be imposing on yourself right now. Yeah,
think about that. How often have you looked at
a dream, a career pivot, a new language you wanted
to learn or a physical challenge you wanted to
undertake and thought, I'm too old or it's too
late for me to start or people from my background
don't do things like that? Carolina Dewar's story
completely and utterly shatters those excuses.
It absolutely dismantles them. And I want to
leave you with this final provocative thought
to mull over today. Let's hear it. If a woman
can step into a professional boxing ring for
the very first time at 29 years old, suffer three
agonizing defeats in a row right at the beginning,
take time off to have a child, and still conquer
the world to become a multi -division world champion
and a historic pioneer for her community, what
arbitrary It's too late for me. Narrative in
your own life is completely fundamentally false.
Wow. What could you achieve if you stopped looking
at the calendar and just stepped into the ring?
What a profound question to end on. Thank you
so much for joining us on this deep dive into
the extraordinary, expectation -defying life
of La Turca, Carolina Dewar. Keep questioning
those timelines. Keep discovering the incredible
stories hidden in the margins of history, and
we will catch you on the next deep dive.