Author Archive

Introduction

Melody Popravak is a professional boxer fighting out of Atlanta, GA. She holds a professional record of 2-2-1, with one win by the way of knockout. She is signed with Eruption Boxing and managed by Gwen Legge. Melody is ranked #6 welterweight in the US and #41 in the world by BoxRec. Though she started boxing later in life, Melody is looking forward to continued success in the ring and making her debut at welterweight, after starting out her career as a middleweight. She also hopes to build her own business in boxing, once her fighting career is over.

Q&A

FightMatrix: Will you please tell us about your upbringing? Did you grow up in Illinois or did you grow up in Georgia?

Melody Popravak: Although I was born in Chicago, I grew up in Fort Myers, FL, then moved to New York City in my early 20’s, where I later found boxing!

FM: At what age did you begin boxing and what made you interested in the sport?

MP: Age 33. I actually started running to lose weight, but I went to the boxing gym with my friend in Fort Myers while visiting, who let me throw punches at him. I was hooked from there. I have always been interested in boxing but went for all the other sports. As I grew older-it was time to try what I always wanted to do! As a woman it’s not the first recommendation to become a boxer, or it wasn’t in my world.

FM: It’s impressive that you placed fourth in the Olympic trials in the Middleweight division, for the United States! That’s quite an achievement. What was going through your mind during that time period?

MP: I was quite anxious during that period because that was my first year of competition. I really needed to learn to stop and smell the roses, and appreciate my achievement. Bless my trainers at that time lol. However, I imagine my pushiness to learn the sport played a part in going that far…

FM: I’m certain that boxing has instilled certain values in your life. What life lessons and experiences have you taken away from learning how to box?

MP: I can’t say enough about how boxing has formed me into a better woman, business person, humanitarian…all of the above. The micro challenges in boxing are there to practice for the macro challenges of life, and I greatly appreciate that.

Melody Popravak Pro Boxer

FM: What advice would you give a female boxer starting her career?

MP: Above all, trust your own instincts first! Nobody knows you like- you! Also, demand a quality of training from yourself and then accordingly the members on your team. In any sport, striving for improvement is key.

FM: How did it feel to win your first professional boxing bout?

MP: That was my most special fight because my Dad was there. He passed shortly after, and it was the only fight he ever saw in person. The look of pride that I remember on his face was everything.

FM: Who do you consider as the best boxer(s) of all time? What is the reasoning for this?

MP: Sugar Ray Robinson. We didn’t know half as much about science back then, and the longevity of his career alone, what a tough man! He could fight on the inside, outside, his jab was beautiful…I could go on and on lol.

FM: How frequently do you train per week?

MP: Boxing 4 days per week, Roadwork 5 days per week currently, and Cross Training 2-3 times a week.

FM: What does the typical training session look like for you?

MP: It varies but I love to be in the ring, whether drills or sparring. It’s all ring experience, and needed, since I started boxing “late” in life.

FM: What are your short-term and long-term career goals?

MP: My short-term goal is to make my debut at welterweight. I am very excited because this is the weight I’ve always wanted to fight at, in the professionals. My long term goal is a world title, but equally as important, to build my own business in boxing. I want the opportunity to continue to do what I love!

FM: Is there anything else that you would like boxing fans, and people reading this interview to know about you?

MP: I would tell them it’s never too late to redirect your life, and to be able to do something that brings you fulfillment. Don’t give up!

Welcome Melody Popravak Pro Boxer


Heather

MMA & Boxing Columnist | Business Development Consultant
I have been a fan and avid viewer of all combat sports for decades. I was once a Judoka, which is what

By Paul Ryerson 

 

Gwen Legge’s Eruption Boxing & MMA Management has just made a big splash in women’s boxing with the signing of female boxer Melody Popravak! Popravak is better known by boxing fans and reluctantly by her opponents by her nickname HellFire Mel!

Popravak is the second female boxer to box for The Eruption Boxing & MMA Management stable of boxers, joining rising star Hailey Pennington.

The 5’11” welterweight boasts a 2-2 record with 1 draw as well as possessing an obsession with pugilism! This falls in line with the dedication of manager Gwen Legge! With Pennington & now Popravak aboard, Legge is looking to corner the market on future stars in women’s boxing! 

Boxing is a very difficult sport where the road to success can be filled with potholes and setbacks but that won’t stop a determined boxer such as HellFire Mel! Here is what she had to say after a fight that did not go her way. “I stepped up and took a fight with an opponent far more experienced than I, and even though I am mad at myself after watching, I am better off for doing it. Real failure is never leaving the couch in the first place.” Popravak, with an outlook like that will go far in women’s boxing!

Stay tuned for announcements on her upcoming bouts! 

For more information on HellFire Mel, Melody Popravak & Hailey Pennington, please visit the Eruption Boxing & MMA Management website.

FIRST THE AMERICAS, THEN THE WORLD:
UNBEATEN ROBERTO CRUZ READY TO
SEIZE HIS CHANCE, LIVE ON DAZN

Puerto Rican prospect promises ‘a great war’ after
Eruption Boxing Management secures WBA shot 

Roberto Cruz Pro Boxer

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 11, 2025 – Undefeated Roberto Cruz has a simple message ahead of his first title challenge – and debut for Eruption Boxing Management: “Don’t miss this fight!”

The 11-0 (7) Puerto Rican, now based in Killeen, Texas, signed with Eruption Boxing Management in February, and his new Manager, Gwen Legge, immediately set about securing the 27-year-old a title shot.

Cruz, who goes by the ring monicker “El Terror de Cayey”, will fight his fellow unbeaten contender, Andreas Katzourakis of Greece, for the WBA Continental Americas super-welterweight championship on May 9,live on DAZN, at the Red Owl Boxing Arena in Houston, Texas.

It is a chance for Eruption’s hot new signing to showcase his potential in front of a worldwide audience.

“I see the fight like a good opportunity to be crowned champion, and to earn a world ranking in this division,” says Cruz.

“It will let everybody know what I am made of. It is going to be a great fight where the fans are going to enjoy a great war, no doubt.”

“A great war” would be an apt description of Katzourakis’ last fight, when he won the OTX tournament with a thrilling 10-round decision over former world title challenger Brandon Adams in November 2024.

The 15-0 (10) Athens man earned a lot of admirers that night – and for Cruz, that means a chance to win new fans of his own.

“I am very excited to be in the main event in a big platform like DAZN,” he says. “It is a great opportunity that I’m very thankful for.”

An opportunity delivered by Eruption Boxing Management, one of the sport’s fast-rising forces.

“I needed a management company like Eruption to guide my career to the next level,” says Cruz. “My team knew that they were the one, so we signed without any hesitation.”

Legge is just as enthused by her new charge. “Roberto Cruz has shown extraordinary talent, dedication and spirit,” she says. “He is diligent in training, he stays focused and composed and is a great striker.

“Eruption Boxing Management fully expects him to win the WBA Continental Americas championship in the DAZN main event on May 9 and from there go on to win a world title.”

Naturally, Cruz himself has a world title as the ultimate goal. It’s something he’s worked towards since he first put on a pair of boxing gloves as a 10-year-old in the mountain town of Cayey, following in the footsteps of several relatives on his mother’s side who were boxers, and an uncle who is a trainer.

As a young amateur, Cruz won the Junior National tournament and represented Puerto Rico internationally.

He turned pro in 2016, winning first six bouts in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, before a move to the US in 2020 kicked his career up a gear.

Alighting in Killeen when his military wife was stationed in Fort Cavazos, Cruz immediately gravitated towards JR Boxing Club in the town, where he fell under the watch of esteemed coach Jesse Ravelo, who has coached numerous world champions and in the 1996 and 2012 Olympic Games.

Cruz, who names fellow Puerto Ricans Felix Trinidad, Wilfredo Benitez and Miguel Cotto among his idols, firmly believes he can follow in their footsteps and become another world champion from his island nation – and from Ravelo’s gym.

But first things first: “My ultimate goal as a professional boxer is to become world champion,” he says. “But my present goal is to focus on May 9 and win this WBA Continental Americas title, by God’s grace.”

To do so, Cruz will have to overcome the so-called experts who have him pegged as an underdog, as well as enter Katzsourakis’ adopted hometown of Houston.

“I am ready and can’t wait to get in the ring,” he says. “I’ll be at his house, but am going to make it mine. Don’t miss this fight!”

—————

* Roberto Cruz vs Andreas Katzsourakis will take place on the OTX 13 event at The Red Owl Boxing Arena in Houston, Texas, on May 9, 2025.

  * Tickets: Click here to buy tickets

 * Eruption Boxing Management aims to take boxers and mixed martial artists to the top and offers the perfect combination of experience and enthusiasm, backed up by an enormous contact’s book that reaches across the world. Interested athletes can find out more at www.eruptionboxing.com, email questions@eruptionboxing.com or call +1 949-329-2661

 * Press enquiries about Roberto Cruz or Eruption Boxing Management are welcomed via questions@eruptionboxing.com  

Eruption Boxing Logo

ERUPTION BOXING & MMA MANAGEMENT

www.eruptionboxing.com

questions@eruptionboxing.com

Tel: +1 949-329-2661

INTRODUCING UNBEATEN YOUNG STAR AND FUTURE CHAMPION HAILEY PENNINGTON

 

Latest signing a particularly special one for Eruption Boxing owner Gwen Legge

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Latest signing a particularly special one for Eruption Boxing owner Gwen Legge

March 3, 2025 – Rising super-featherweight starlet Hailey Pennington may have found her perfect promotional home after inking a deal with Eruption Boxing Management.

Pennington is already being tipped by many as a future champion, and her new manager, Eruption Boxing owner Gwen Legge, is especially pleased with her new signing.

Having teamed with her idol, the fabled ‘First Lady of Boxing’, Jackie Kallen, in setting up Eruption, Legge now says: “I like to call myself ‘the next lady of boxing’ – Hailey is the first girl I’ve signed, so she’s pretty special to me.”

Pennington joins Legge’s growing stable which includes the likes of 11-0 Roberto Cruz, Chinese contender Peng Qu, former ABF super-flyweight champion Guillermo Gutierrez and undefeated novice pros Efrain Sanchez, Paul Anthony and Jayon Tinnin, among others.  But the 25-year-old from Huntington, West Viriginia, might be Legge’s brightest hope yet.

“She’s tough, strong and beautiful,” says Legge of her charge. “She has shown extraordinary talent, dedication and spirit, and she’s going to be world champion.”

It’s a sentiment which echoes that of Pennington’s father, back when she was a child.

“I started training when I was 18 years old,” she says, which if anything was belated, considering her father ran a gym all through her childhood and repeatedly told her: “If you start now, you’ll be a world champion.”

But despite his enthusiasm, she wasn’t initially convinced.

It was after fighting off bullies in school that she realized the value of what her father had taught her, and decided to give boxing a proper push.

She climbed as high as No.2 in the USA Boxing ranks as an amateur and then started thinking about  the pros. Two wins in 2024 – both first-round knockouts – kicked off her paid career in perfect style and brought her to the attention of Eruption Boxing.

Next up will be Pennington’s debut for her new management team, and third professional contest, when she meets Yoryina Meyers on May 3 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Meyers herself is undefeated at 3-0, so is a potential banana skin to Pennington’s ambitions, but Hailey remains confident in her prospects both now and in the future.

“My short-term goals are to just get my career running. For long-term, I want to take over the 126lbs division,” she says.

That, and to help the next generation of boxers come through her own facility, The Pit Boxing, which opened last year in her Huntington hometown.

“The most rewarding part of being a professional boxer is being a role model for the younger girls below me,” she says.

And, as a role model, Pennington is seen to work hard. “Boxing is not a job, it’s just my life,” she says.

“I imagine the body as a machine and I want to see how far I can push.”

Can she push as far as a world title?

By joining Eruption – and with it receiving the support of two of the sport’s most passionate women, the ‘First’ and the ‘Next’ ladies of boxing – Pennington is well placed to chase her dreams, and those of the many who believe in her.

* Hailey Pennington v  Yoryina Meyers will take place on the ‘Punches Flow For Cinco De Mayo’ event at The Complex in Lincoln, Nebraska, on May 3, 2025.

 * More information: www.thecomplexlincoln.com

 * Tickets: www.nitrotickets.com

 * Eruption Boxing Management aims to take boxers and mixed martial artists to the top and offers the perfect combination of experience and enthusiasm, backed up by an enormous contacts book that reaches across the world. Interested athletes can find out more at www.eruptionboxing.com, email questions@eruptionboxing.com or call +1 949-329-2661

 * Press enquiries about Hailey Pennington or Eruption Boxing Management are welcomed via info@eruptionboxing.com 

ERUPTION BOXING
& MMA MANAGEMENT 

www.eruptionboxing.com

gwen@eruptionboxing.com

Tel: +1 949-329-2661