Sports Illustrated: Christy Martin fights for her new life six years after being left to die

By Jacob Feldman, Sports Illustrated

Christy Martin: Boxer fights to move on after shooting

The gun was pink. Christy Martin knew as much because the nine-millimeter that her husband, Jim, aimed at her chest six years ago was, in fact, her gun. And pink was her color.

Years before that, a small-time promoter had first dressed her in pink as a marketing ploy, and the color stuck as she climbed boxing’s ranks. She sported a pink robe, which she accented with a championship belt in 1996. She rocked pink wrist tape at crowded press events; she was one of Don King’s biggest draws when Mike Tyson was unavailable. And when Christy Martin ushered women’s boxing into the mainstream by appearing on the April 15, 1996 cover of Sports Illustrated, she did so wearing pink shorts. Pink got her recognized on Rodeo Drive and Fifth Avenue. But now the only pink she could see was the blurry barrel of a Glock, safety off, loaded with a metallic bullet.

Before taking aim that afternoon at their house outside Orlando, Jim Martin had repeatedly pistol-whipped his wife, bashed her head into a dresser and stabbed her three times in the chest. Blood gurgled from Christy’s collapsed left lung; her left calf was slashed nearly to the bone.

“You can’t f------ kill me,” she cried out.

And that’s when Jim shot her in the chest, leaving her to die.

Continued at SI.Com here...