When the door to the Olympics closed last year, a door in Boston opened for Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School graduate Amelia Moore.

Amelia Moore is a five-time national champion boxer who was raised in Norway and attended Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School. She began her professional boxing career this year, competing for the Boston Butchers of the Total Combat League. Williams Paul/Boston Butchers photo

Moore made her professional debut with the Boston Butchers of the Team Combat League earlier this year. She’s currently 8-0 with one knockout headed into Wednesday’s quarterfinals.

The 26-year-old boxer had been fighting and training with Team USA and USA boxing in past seasons. She’s also a five-time national champion, a multi-time international medalist and was an alternate for the 2020 Olympics.

“I was kind of a transition period,” Moore said. “I was unsure (because) there’s been a lot of politics with Team USA, and both of my weight classes were pre-qualified. There’s been a lot of changes with the International Olympic Committee.”

The Team Combat League compensates fighters, which allows athletes like Moore to devote their time to the league. She still lives in Colorado, but she relocated to Boston for the Team Combat League season and trains full-time with Butchers head coach Marc Gargaro.

While in high school, Moore said sports were her escape from what was happening at home. At Oxford Hills, she competed in soccer, boys ice hockey and indoor and outdoor track and field. After graduating from high school in 2008, she ran two seasons of Division-I track at the Naval Academy.

“It’s incredible, the programs Oxford Hills has,” Moore said. “I think that that is really essential; there’s a lot of other smaller regions in Maine that don’t have the sports programs available to them. We are very, very fortunate.”

After her time with Team USA ended, Moore said she wanted to continue fighting but needed to find a new place to do so. She reached out to Gargaro, whom she knows well from the USA Olympic Team, world championships and international events.

“I just sent him a message, and I jokingly said, ‘Geez, I guess I should have tried out for the team,’ and he sent me a message back, ‘I’ll call you in three days,’” Moore said.

Moore also said there were far too many coincidences to ignore when making her decision, as fellow teammate Rashidi Ellis is the brother of Rashida Ellis, who Moore was an Olympic alternate for in 2020.

“There’s been a lot of weird alignments, so I really do believe once there’s so many alignments, it’s like, this isn’t coincidence,” Moore said. “The universe, her fingers have been in everything lately, and it’s, it’s been great.”

The Butchers are currently in their second year in the Team Combat League, which features pro-style boxing rather than the amateur style Moore is most familiar with.

“I am kind of a boxing purist, and I think a lot of people are, so it’s very different from the traditional,” Moore said of pro fighting style. “It’s its own concept, but still gives you the pro-style rules, still gives you the exposure and it’s a really great opportunity.”

The key differences in the Team Combat League’s fighting style compared to other styles Moore has done include the types of glove, not requiring head gear and the length of each round. In Olympic and amateur boxing, Moore said fighters wear 10- and 12-ounce gloves. The Team Combat League has two weight classes for women, featherweights (126 pounds), who wear 8-ounce gloves, and while Moore and the other heavyweights (147 pounds) use gloves that are 10 ounces.

Women in the TCL also fight three-minute rounds, which is unheard of, Moore said. Amateur women bouts feature two-minute rounds, while men fight three-minute rounds.

Amelia Moore, who grew up in Norway, began a professional boxing career this year after spending several years in the USA boxing ranks. Emily Harney photo

“In women’s pro boxing, they’re still kind of fighting for equality,” Moore said. “Women have been pushing for equality in the Olympic Games to fight three-minute rounds, just like the men. So, with TCL, there’s been a massive push for three-minute rounds.

“There’s been some highlights participating with the league that I’m like, ‘All right, this is really actually propelling the sport for women,’ which is kind of beautiful.”

The Team Combat League is much more fast-paced for Moore, as well. She said she’s used to the high-level amateur style of throwing a punch every three to five seconds, but now there’s no time to “pose or delay,” since there’s constant action, which adds pressure to each round.

“I feel like that was a really great transition because it’s a necessity in the league,” Moore said. “You only have one or two rounds, depending, to be able to pull to secure the win, so you can dominate that round.”

Boxing has always been a male-dominant sport, and Moore is one of only six women on the Butchers’ 24-person roster, but she loves being part of making history.

“I came through boxing at a time where women started, they were pioneers,” Moore said.  “Then, there was the next generation of pioneers, and I feel I’m part of that. The first females were in the Olympics in 2012, it hasn’t even been 12 years.”

While Moore said she’s proud to add to the generations of female boxers, she’d still like to see more weight classes for women added to the TCL, beyond featherweights and heavyweights.

As an amateur, she usually fought at 132 pounds, which is on the lighter end of the heavyweights in the league. But maintaining lower weight to be a featherweight is too difficult.

“It’s a pretty big bump up, and trying to hold down 126 or 130 pounds for 10 weeks straight or more … it’s been like three and a half months because the schedule changes, so it’s impossible,” Moore said.

Despite the challenges, Moore said she’s enjoyed the talent she’s faced, including the No. 3 world-ranked woman and prior world champions. She called the Team Combat League a “real mixing pot of talent,” full of “people like me who are coming out of the amateurs highly seasoned to ready boost themselves into the traditional pro ranks to get a good look.”

In 2022, Moore traveled back to South Paris to visit with high school students and talk about her fighting career. She said Oxford Hills High School remains an important part of her life, as she learned valuable lessons there that she still uses today.

Oxford Hills graduate Amelia Moore boxes for the Boston Butchers in a Total Combat League bout against the Los Angeles Elite on May 2, 2024, in Boston. Moore is 8-0 this season, her first as a professional boxer. Williams Paul/Boston Butchers photo

One of those is a quote from her Oxford Hills math teacher and after-school tutor, Alan Gary.

“He would tutor me after school, and he would say, ‘Amelia, your mind is a muscle, too,’ and something about that just clicked,” Moore said. “I’ve preached to so many people about how often times, we all want to sit in a label that’s comfortable, especially in boxing. I truly believe that a smart athlete is the most dangerous athlete.”

Moore added that she believes that skills learned in the classroom are transferable to the ring, and the value of education is high when it comes to pursuing athletic goals.

After the Team Combat League season ends, Moore said she plans to pursue a traditional professional fighting career.

But first she’ll help the Butchers in the postseason, starting with Wednesday’s quarterfinal bouts against the Atlanta Attack. The match will take place at the Royale Boston, or can be viewed via livestream.

“We love to have people come out and watch the fight, it’s our last home match,” Moore said.