The Chicago investment banker and newly minted welterweight champion opens up about overcoming homelessness, embracing your inner nerd and why Katie Taylor is on her way out
Jessica McCaskill has not slowed down since capturing boxing’s undisputed welterweight championship last week with a surprise majority-decision win over Cecilia Brækhus, the previously undefeated Norwegian widely regarded as the sport’s pound-for-pound world No 1. But the 35-year-old investment banker from Chicago, who overcame homelessness as a child and the 6-1 odds against her on Saturday night, doesn’t know any other way.
On Monday morning at 6am, less than 30 hours after climbing through the ropes of a purpose-built ring on the streets of downtown Tulsa and winning the fight of her life, the newly minted WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO champion at 147lbs was back at the Body Shot Boxing Club on Chicago’s South Side helping out with the group of teenage amateurs she’s taken under her wing before unpacking her laptop and computer monitors and logging on remotely to her day job.
