Buckhead Fight Club Paves Way for Women in Boxing

The first time that World Champion Boxer Terri Moss stepped into a boxing gym, she was a 34-year-old working as a narcotics investigator.

“Boxing has a way of grabbing onto your spirit,” Moss said. 

Two years later she gave up her 14-year career in law enforcement and made her debut as a professional boxer.  She faced doubt and discouragement from her family and co-workers. 

“The ridicule started when I said I wanted to box,” Moss said. 

She quickly proved them wrong.

“In the first 12 months that I was a fighter, I became ranked No.2 in the world,” Moss said.  She won the world championship in 2007 but it wasn’t an easy career and she retired one year later.  

At that point, she decided to become a full-time trainer and partnered up with her former trainer at Decatur Boxing Club. For Moss, bringing women into the boxing gyms was a goal from the beginning.

“I just wanted to train women, get them into the gym,” Moss said.

For 11 years she worked along with her former trainer at the Decatur Boxing Club until her female clients, known as the Boxing Chicks, began to overtake the gym, at the annoyance of her partner.  Moss had also started Corporate Fight Night, a bi-annual event where white-collar business people box for charity.  Her innovations seemed to threaten those around her and the tension at the two-trainer gym grew.

“In this line of work, you’re not supposed to be a woman who does big things,” Moss said. 

She never thought of herself as a feminist, but the treatment of women in boxing did not escape her notice. 

“You have to let them take the stage or they just get mad at you,” Moss said.  “I think they just don’t think that you belong there.”

After 11 years, she decided that her time at Decatur Boxing Club needed to come to a close.  In May, she opened the Buckhead Fight Club, a place where “egos are positively kept in check,” and women and men train together without issue.

“There’s something about Fight Club that’s like cool, and that’s probably because it’s run by Boxing Chicks instead of men,” Moss said. 

Buckhead Fight Club is easy to miss. The entrance is a single glass door tucked between two stores in the Northeast Plaza Shopping Center.  Inside of the door is a dark staircase leading underneath the plaza into a 15,000-square-foot gym.

Moss found the space 10 years ago when her former trainer used to rent out a corner from the previous owner for boxing practice.

The Boxing Chicks built Buckhead Fight Club but Moss has worked with male boxers at the club as well without incident.

“I thought I would get a lot of static from the men that would be coming to my gym but surprisingly they have huge respect,” Moss said.

At Fight Club, Moss is building more than a clientele, she’s building a community.

“There’s a club feeling here where people know and like each other,” Moss said.

Tomorrow Pictures is currently filming a documentary on the Boxing Chicks which Moss hopes will become a television show where the real women of boxing can be showcased.

“We’re trying to tell the real story to see who are these Boxing Chicks and what are they doing and what drives them,” Moss said. 

In her efforts to train female boxers, Moss continues to work as a pioneer, paving the way for future women of boxing.

“I like to be the first and the best so I don’t mind suffering a little to make big things happen,” Moss said.