Nothing has changed about the halls in McCormick Taylor’s Robinson Township offices.
For one of the company’s youngest civil engineers, that could not be any further from the truth.
Mary Casamassa, a 2018 Aquinas Academy and 2023 Pitt graduate from Wexford, became just the second female world champion boxer in Western Pennsylvania history over the past weekend.
Now just two years into her professional boxing career — and one into her tenure as an engineer — Casamassa won a 10-round decision over former featherweight champion Olivia Gerula to claim the Women’s International Boxing Association (WIBA) Super Middleweight championship Saturday night in a multi-card event at Steamfitter Local Union 449 Event Center in Harmony.
“It’s a little weird,” said the 24-year-old southpaw Tuesday of winning her first title-shot bout. “You come off the high the day after or so. I was a little bit sore afterward, so that, I guess, kept me down a little bit more, but I was really happy. I was really excited.
“I don’t want to rest on my laurels like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the epitome,’ but you do want to enjoy it while you have it because it was a really long camp. I worked really, really, hard for that win.”
Casamassa, now 5-0 as a professional, won her unanimous decision with scores from the fight’s three judges of 100-90, 100-90 and 99-91. She joins Jill Emery as the only female Pittsburgh fighters to win world championships.
Emery claimed her International Boxing Association (IBA) Welterweight World Championship belt with a 10-round decision in June 2008 over Angelica Martinez at Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn.
“It’s been a nice journey so far,” said Jack Mook of Casamassa, whom he has trained at his Jack’s Boxing Gym in Ross for the past seven years. “If you keep on winning like that, you know you’re doing things right.”
The youngest of John and Abby Casamassa’s six children, Mary’s road to a world championship began when she followed her three brothers to the boxing gym as a kid to watch them train.
Casamassa stepped into the ring for the first time when she was 15 for an amateur fight and eventually accrued a 12-2 record before turning professional.
Along the way, Casamassa dealt with her fair share of obstacles to success. She trained while maintaining a 3.55 GPA in Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering and also dealt with professional fighters canceling bouts at the last moment.
Mook has maintained once film got out on his fighter it became increasingly difficult for her promoter, Derek Gionta, proprietor of Gionta Management LLC, to keep fighters interested in meeting one of the sport’s rising female stars in the ring.
“Probably in the past about 15 months we have had six fights that were canceled by the opponents so that continued that we can’t get a match for this girl,” Mook said. “We’ve even had people reach out to us and they said yes to the contract and they would never respond after that. That’s the frustration with the sport.”
For Gionta, it has only made Casamassa’s success all the sweeter.
“I’m extremely proud of her, most importantly because of some of the fights that fell out early on,” he said. “She’s only been a pro two years, I was getting her fights dating back to the amateurs, and to have been able to orchestrate that and be a part of it from the start is really special. She’s the first person under my banner that has a title. It’s a great situation.”
So, too, was getting Casamassa a fight with a professional the caliber of Gerula (19-21-3), who has fought in nine world-title bouts. The Canadian native is a former World Boxing Council (WBC) Super Featherweight champion.
“We knew about her,” Gionta said. “She’s a tough veteran. We actually tried to get her to fight before on some of these previous shows when we were just looking to do six-rounders. She wasn’t really interested in just doing six-rounder, but when we brought this title in, it was a vacant title, that enticed her to do it.”
Casamassa is pleased Gerula opted in as well.
“She shows up to fight,” she said. “She can definitely take a punch. She has a lot of experience, and it definitely showed in the ring. I think my biggest advantage was the height difference, to be perfectly honest, but I appreciated her just coming out and taking the fight because me getting a fight with someone like her with over 40 fights, for only my fifth fight, is something that is going to be really big for my career.”
Casamassa said she also owes plenty to her rigorous training schedule with Mook and sparring sessions with professional fighter Matt Conway, who is based out of the Brownson House in Washington, Pa.
“I sparred 10 rounds with him five or six times,” she said. “That was a huge help for me just realizing, not that I can just make it through, but I can really fight for 10 rounds. That was a really great part of training camp. It’s cardio, but it’s mental at the same time.”
Casamassa and her team agree with her first title belt now firmly planted around her waist, it’s time to focus on which weight class the fighter will compete at in the future. She fought Saturday at 162 pounds, while Gerula likely competed above the super middleweight 168-pound weight limit once the fight finally came around, Gionta said.
The 5-foot-9 fighter’s future likely lies in the 160-pound middleweight or 154-pound junior middleweight classes.
“It’s hard to say,” Gionta said. “It all depends, who we fight, what’s at stake.”
Casamassa said she is excited to realize her full potential in the sport to which she has dedicated much of her young adult life.
“I think we’re still looking into opponents,” she said. “My attitude is, whoever Jack tells me to fight, I’ll fight.
As for the McCormick Taylor offices, Casamassa said she isn’t expecting any special treatment there even considering her entrance as the latest champion in the “City of Champions.”
“My company is fairly flexible if I need time for a fight or something like that,” she said. “That part of it is nice. They all said, ‘Congrats,’ but I don’t try to build myself up quite that way, so they all said, ‘Good luck and congratulations.’ They’re supportive.”
John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.