Elhem Mekhaled

Mekhaled, known as “The Diamond,” is a French professional boxer born on February 7, 1991, in Vaulx-en-Velin, France. Mekhaled began boxing at the age of 20 after discovering the sport through a coach at her school. She represented Algeria at the international level during her amateur career, participating in the qualifiers for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Over her amateur tenure, she recorded 40 fights and gained experience on the international stage.

She turned professional on November 12, 2016, with a four-round points decision victory over Jacinthe Berenguer in Montpellier, France. In March 2017, she secured the French female super-featherweight title with a fourth-round technical knockout against Wendy Vincent. In December 2018, she won the vacant European female super-featherweight title by defeating Marina Sakharov via ninth-round TKO in her hometown. In March 2019, Mekhaled captured the WBC interim female super-featherweight title with a unanimous decision over Danila Ramos in Barcelona, Spain.

On February 4, 2023, she faced Alycia Baumgardner for the undisputed super-featherweight championship at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater in New York. Mekhaled lost the fight by unanimous decision. She returned to competition on July 20, 2024, in a bout against Chantelle Cameron for the vacant WBC interim super-lightweight title and lost by majority decision.

In September 2020, she signed with MTK Global, becoming their first female boxer of Arabic descent. She later joined Split-T Management, stating her goal to become an undisputed champion and compete across multiple weight divisions. Her career has contributed to increased representation of athletes following the Africa-to-France pipeline in professional boxing.

Mekhaled fights with a foundation grounded in Olympic-style boxing, where control of space and point scoring matter more than heated exchanges. She advances and retreats using her lead foot to establish position. Her jab is central to her offense, opening up clean entries for her follow-ups. She regularly uses a jab-right hand combination and often adds a hook or uppercut depending on her opponent’s guard.

She relies on structured Olympic combinations—jab-straight, hook to the body, pivot out—scoring logic. These combinations are used in technical Olympic-style dog fights. Her method is described by her team as a “second-coming France mentality,” referring to the postcolonial generation of boxers who compete not just for titles, but to redefine what French boxing looks like.

Her style is compared to that of a French infantryman drinking a liter of wine and fighting—a process that draws attention when watched closely. She is part of a growing group of African and Arabic fighters now representing France. These fighters often bring layered sequencing shaped by cultural habits and training systems. Rather than throwing reckless combinations, she works with flow and targeting openings in real time. Her shots move across the body and up the center line in deliberate patterns. This sense of cadence is not just a system—it reflects a cultural imprint.