Regina Halmich Retires From Boxing After Victory Over Finer

Women’s International Boxing Flyweight champion Regina Halmich (54-1-1) announced her retirement after winning a narrow over Hagar Shmoulefield Finer, a 23 year-old Israeli, on Friday night at the DM Arena in Berlin, Germany. It was a record 45th title defense for Halmich, 31, a record that’s likely not to be broken anytime soon by anyone. Fighting in front of a sell-out crowd of 7500 fans, who had come to say goodbye to Halmich, she didn’t disappoint as she pressed the action from the opening bell, punishing the weaker, slower and less skilled Finer.

Though the scores were close, I had it eight rounds to two in Halmich’s favor, and I felt I was being generous by giving Finer that many rounds. It was essentially a one-sided fight until the 9th, when Finer landed a few wild haymakers, which might have been enough to give her the round. In the 10th, Finer pressed the action and legitimately appeared to win the round, as she kept a lot of pressure on Halmich and was able to land some good shots in the round. Unfortunately for Finer, she didn’t do this in the other rounds of the fight, mainly staying on the outside and throwing wild shots.

She didn’t make many friends in the German crowd by walking back to her corner every round with her hands held up above her head, as if she had won the round. She wasn’t winning, though, as her form looked awful, and she had zero power in her toothpick arms. In rounds one through eight, Halmich dominated the action, putting together powerful combinations to win the rounds. Not only was her form much better, but her power was clearly superior to Finer, who mainly threw weak arm punches. The final judges’ scores were 95-95, 97-94, and 96-94.