Hagan, although she lost the fight against Emerick, was featured in a gimmicky “rasso-boxing” match against wrestler Bev Lehmar in the same theater the following week. The five-round boxing/wrestling match allowed mat work and straight punching, with both young women reported to have “pitched and tossed to a stormy . . . draw,” with Hagen having “survived an early series of body slams.”[36] The women fought in front of a roaring crowd of 875 fans—the largest to that date in the series of matches held at the Moose.
Not to be outdone, promoter Champ Thomas continued offering women’s wrestling, but boxing proved to be so popular that by the middle of December of 1949 local girls were clamoring to take up the sport. This led Thomas to bet on fights with local “talent.” Although the girls were relatively untrained, he nonetheless added the matches as a feature of his Tuesday night fight cards. For the first outing Jean Hansen, a Council Bluffs native, fought against Ida Spaulding, who hailed from Oklahoma.[37]
Another outgrowth of the Hagen-Emerick boxing match was what the local press called the “invasion by women and girls of the rougher and tougher fields of competitive athletics” from Council Bluffs and the surrounding towns in southwest Iowa. The paper cited boxing, wrestling, mixed-gender wrestling, and even the case of a ten-year-old girl who showed up for a football clinic “figur[ing] she could play football as well as the boys.”[38]
Out in California, Belle Martell was back in the fray working to promote female boxers alongside her husband, Art. Martell believed “boxing as a competitive sport is dead.” In her view the advent of television was killing boxing because more and more fights were being marketed for the television audience—with few spectators showing up at the arenas, and no opportunity for budding boxers to develop their talent. In her opinion, the best course to save boxing—and taking a cue from the successes she saw in the promotion of wrestling—was to wow the crowd with really skilled female boxers. To undertake her endeavor, she advertised to the public for potential fighters. Overwhelmed by the response, she told a reporter she received in all “150—everything from movie extras, Earl Carroll showgirls to plain Amazons.”
Putting the women through a training regimen, she and her husband signed Jacqueline O’Neill along with ten of the other women who showed the most skill and aptitude to be future champions. O’Neill, a 125-pound fighter, was viewed as their first potential title winner—and with Belle pushing to get California to abolish its rule banning female fighting, she promoted O’Neill’s debut fight for viewing on television in the fall of 1951.[39]
Given the Martells’ record of success with amateur boxing beginning in the 1930s, they were hopeful that their promotional acumen would help kick-start these sorts of entertainments, but ultimately not much came of it. Absent in the discussion was who the sanctioning body or bodies would be that might confer women’s boxing titles. There was also no discussion on what sort of regional and national network was to be put in place to promote the female fights—something akin, perhaps, to wrestling’s NWA—with the added understanding that men’s boxing at the time didn’t fare much better. As it was, titles for women continued to be conferred on a local level through the auspices of sponsoring organizations and promoters themselves who awarded the titles as an add-on to their fight-card marketing. The NBA also continued to prove itself wholly unsympathetic to the cause of women’s boxing.
The advent of television had hurt the gate receipts for the kinds of shows the Martells were famous for. After closing up shop at the Olympic and running Belle’s Arena, they were looking to the women’s fight angle as a way to stay in the game. While not much came of it, they did end up taking over the Hollywood Legion Stadium’s Thursday night amateur program in 1954, a highly popular venue for wrestling as well. One facet of their renewed amateur night program, however, was the seeming absence of female fights on their cards.
Into this mix of burgeoning boxing promotion and opportunities for professional fights between skilled female fighters came Barbara Buttrick. After coming to America, she made appearances with a boxing-and-wrestling act on the American carnival circuit, picking up true boxing matches where she could.
According to her record, her first fight in the United States was against Pat Emerick. They were purported to have fought in Omaha, Nebraska, with Buttrick winning their six-round bout on points in December 1952. While Emerick claimed to have been retired at this time—given that it was two years after her accident—it is possible that she fought against Buttrick, if not in a sanctioned bout then in an exhibition bout.
Buttrick’s next fight was in St. Louis a month later. Her opponent turned out to be Nancy Parker, a veteran of the Hagen fight in West Virginia. In the match, despite Parker’s size and weight advantage, Buttrick bested her with a third-round KO win. Buttrick went on to fight four more boxing matches in 1953, traveling a circuit of boxing shows throughout the Midwest and the old border states. In between fights, Buttrick settled in Waterloo, Iowa, working as a boxing trainer at the Elks Club, teaching young boys of color the rudiments of boxing.
In this period she also began fighting in wrestling matches for promoter Karl Pojello, a Lithuanian by birth who had wrestled in the United States in the 1930s. Pojello, based out of Chicago, famously promoted such wrestlers as Maurice Tillet, the “French Angel.” The relationship between Buttrick and Pojello came to an abrupt end, however, when Pojello died in September 1954.
A genius at wrestling promotion, Pojello had Buttrick fighting on all manner of cards. One such fight card, in November 1953, found her battling Dorothy Ford with a thirty-minute time limit. Another part of the card featured “‘Battling Betty Bear,’” a “175-pound black bear” and her trainer, “Walter Gatlin,” a black wrestler “from Memphis.”[40]
Another card in February 1954 saw Buttrick participate in the main event: a mixed-gender, mixed-race tag-team bout. The match, along with the undercard fight, was featured at the Playdium Theater, a combination nightclub, bowling alley, and bar located in downtown Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The top billing on the card was for an African-American wrestler, Irene Cobb, and her father, John Cobb, based out of wrestling’s mecca: Dallas, Texas. The father-daughter pairing was set to fight Buttrick, partnered with Big Jack Bernard (as in 240 pounds big), from Nashville, Tennessee. An advertisement, featuring a full-length photograph of Irene Cobb dressed in an elaborate bathing costume in a strong-woman pose, promised a “Mixed Tag Match!” with “Girls!” and “Men!” as the main event.[41] One newspaper also referred to the show as “The colorful mixed tag team match” on the weekly card at the Playdium.[42]
While Buttrick and Bernard lost to the Cobbs, the fight itself was a sensation. The local Sheboygan paper published a photograph of the ring extravaganza featuring Irene Cobb, who easily outweighed Buttrick by forty pounds or more, dangling Buttrick behind her on her back. The caption read in part, “Little (100 pounds) Barbara Buttrick refuses to release her leg-lock despite the fact that Irene Cobb manages to standup and put her in an upside-down position.”[43]
Other Buttrick wrestling matches were contests on less flamboyant fight cards with one or two women’s wrestling events among the four or five fights on the card. Speaking about her experiences to an Associated Press reporter a couple of years later, she noted she was not very enamored of wrestling and had left the sport in favor of boxing, adding, “Boxers don’t last as long as wrestlers, and I figure I can take up wrestling when I am through with boxing.” She was often paired with women who outweighed her by forty to fifty pounds, which could not have been easy for her. The truth was, as a highly-skilled practitioner of the sweet science, the rough and ready world of wrestling was well out of her wheelhouse.[44]
Buttrick was able to jump back to boxing in July 1954, when she fought Audrey Burrows, listed as the “United States Bantam Champ.” Burrows was another South Bend fighter who weighed in at about 116 pounds. The eight-round world championship fight was billed as the main event on a five-fight card featuring local and
regional talent. Buttrick was given top billing as the “British Champion.” Rather than hold the bouts inside a theater or arena, the promoters put together an outdoor affair in Dickinson, North Dakota, at the American Legion baseball field.
A press report in the Bismarck Tribune touting the contest was less than flattering in the lead-up to the fight:
In one corner, wearing Devil’s Delight lipstick and chartreuse trunks, will be Barbara Buttrick, “champion of the British Isles.” Opposing her, with a Tony “natural wave” and an off-the-shoulder ensemble will be Audrey Burrows from South Bend, Ind. The respective weights of the fistic femmes are their own darn business.[45]
Most press reports were in actuality positive when it came to female boxers in the period, and the notices announcing the outcome of the match were no exception. Buttrick had defeated Burrows by KO with the Billings Gazette reporting:
Briton Wins—Barbara Buttrick, champion woman boxer of the British Isles, won over Audrey Burrows in a boxing match at the American Legion baseball field Friday night. The bout went three rounds.[46]
The local Dickinson Press was also positive and led with:
Battling Barbara Buttrick of the British Isle scored a third-round knockout over Audrey Burrows. . . . In the main go, Burrows carried the fight to the British girl for a round and a half before hitting the canvas in the second round for a seven-count. Referee Pat Conlon tolled out the full 10 in the third when the girl from Indiana stopped a volley of Buttrick blasts and wound up on the deck.[47]
If there was any controversy at all it was in sorting through whether the fight went three or four rounds, as noted on Buttrick’s official record.
Buttrick’s next boxing match was held on September 9, 1954, and was the toughest in her career as a professional boxer. Signed by boxing promoter Jack Berry, the now five-foot Buttrick was set to battle Jo Ann Hagen, who had a full seven inches in height and at least thirty pounds in weight over her.
The fight itself was the “semi windup” to the main event to be held at the Victory Pavilion in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. A poster for the fight featured photographs of both fighters with the title “In This Corner” as the lead-in. Buttrick was featured as the “British Empire Girl Champion” and Hagen as “America’s Finest Girl Boxer.” Further text noted they were “two of the classiest girl boxers in the world.”[48]
Both fighters were certainly well matched, as they were both seasoned pros with several years of boxing experience. The height and weight differences, however, placed Buttrick in an exceedingly disadvantaged position going into the eight-round bout. The promoter didn’t consider it an issue and more than happily arranged for the fight to be broadcast on radio—a first for women’s boxing anywhere in the world.
A photograph of the boxing match first published in the Calgary Herald shows Hagen, a statuesque blond with light-colored trunks, white boxing shoes (modified ice skating boots), and a white shirt, towering over Buttrick. Hagen’s gloved right hand is extended and pushing Buttrick’s head back as she connects with a right to Hagen’s chest underneath her left arm. The image of Buttrick, who sported dark trunks with a Union Jack on the right leg and a white shirt, seems to be that of a child attempting to fight an adult.
As could have been predicted, Hagen, who came in thirty pounds or so heavier than Buttrick, proved to be too overpowering. Still, although Buttrick lost to Hagen on points, she showed remarkable skill and tenacity that kept her upright except for two brief trips to the canvas in the fourth and the seventh rounds.
In an article published in the Calgary Herald the next day, the reporter was quite obviously impressed with both fighters, touting their match as “an action-packed” bout. He also stated Buttrick and Hagen “showed an amazing knowledge of the art of self-defense as both came up with some clever bits of Boxing.”
The piece pointed out that Hagen “possessed too much of an advantage” over Buttrick, who was nonetheless “game against the powerful hitting Hagen.” It also reported that while Barbara was suffering from a bad head cold, she overcame it as best she could and “won the plaudits of the crowd as she weaved her way in on her American opponent continuously and in fact was the aggressor throughout the bout.”
The reporter stated that “without exception the bout provided plenty of action and the crowd in its entirety ate it up.”
In postfight interviews, Hagan said she thought Buttrick was “the best and toughest fighter she’d ever met” and was quoted as saying, “I have a split lip and cut nose to prove it.” Buttrick, reported to be in a “jovial mood, and unmarked,” was equally ebullient about Hagen saying, “She was big, she was strong, she was tough and she won. JoAnn is the best boxer I have ever been up against, but I would like to meet her again when I am in better shape.” It was to be the only loss Buttrick claimed to have suffered in her career.[49]
Buttrick didn’t fight any more boxing bouts that year, in part due to the difficulty in finding women to combat, and in part having suffered an injury to her back. She pulled up stakes with her husband and relocated to Dallas, Texas, in 1955, thinking the climate for fighting might be better there. Len Smith got a job as a physical culture instructor at a club in Dallas, while Buttrick went into training with local veteran trainer Mickey Riley. A former lightweight, Riley, known as “The Singing Boxer” (renowned in his boxing days for singing to the crowd before each fight), hailed from San Antonio, Texas. He fought from the late 1910s through 1935, with most of his bouts contested in Texas, though he occasionally went as far afield as Oklahoma.
Speaking about Buttrick to reporters, Riley declared she was “the finest boxer he ever had seen” and, taking a cue from Buttrick’s earlier promotional endeavors, “issued a challenge to any woman in the world to take [her on].” He also rated her as “better than most men her weight.”[50]
Following this challenge, Buttrick claimed success in two more fights: one in July 1955 against Juanita Lopez in Tyler, Texas, whom she bested in a six-rounder on points, and the other in Reynosa, Mexico, against Rosita Gonzalez, who hit the canvas giving Buttrick the KO win in the third round. Boxing for women, however, was still illegal in Texas, so any fights there, or in Mexico for that matter, remained unsanctioned. Attempts by Riley to seek out fights in other locales with matchmakers and promoters were also difficult to bring to fruition—including one that would have brought Buttrick to Australia had Riley been able to solidify plans made with San Francisco-based promoter Bill Newman.
Women, Boxing, and Popular Culture
In the decade of the 1950s, the juxtaposition of women and boxing also became a theme in other aspects of popular culture.
Active female boxers were also seen on television. Boxer Jo Ann Hagen put in an appearance on the popular game show What’s My Line on July 22, 1956, signing in as a “professional boxer,” to the wows of the audience and the panel. She also appeared alongside fellow South Bend fighter and sparring partner, Phyllis Kugler, on the November 18, 1956, airing of the highly rated television variety program The Steve Allen Show. During the segment, Hagen and Kugler came onto the stage in dresses and Hagen chitchatted with Steve Allen before they both left to change into their boxing trunks. Both Hagen and Allen then donned boxing gloves, and after batting around with Steve Allen, Phyllis Kugler came out and she and Hagen spent a minute giving a light sparring exhibition.
Another feature of this period was the growing popularity of boxing on television and the marketing of the sport as family entertainment. The Ring magazine, boxing’s premier publication of record, even put a woman on the cover of its 1955 TV Fights edition. In the cover illustration, a family of three, a mother, a father, and their son, are shown actively engaged in watching a fight on a large console television set. This was no family of working-class stiffs. Their dress and manner were clearly meant to show a middle-class suburban family. The choice of showing a domestic scene that was a variant on a Norman Rockwell view of the family was clearly in line with the objectives of bringing sports c
ontent into households during the “family hour” at the end of the work and school day. And no wonder: Boxing was hugely profitable to the sponsors, chiefly Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Gillette, and could be seen on most nights of the week.
A woman was even featured as a sports writer named “Mickey” Riley on the Dear Phoebe television program, which ran from 1954 to 1955. On the show, Riley opined about sports from baseball to boxing and joked about her attendance at boxing matches.[51]
The sight of gloved young women neatly attired in trunks and white shirts in boxing’s squared circle, however, seemed an anathema on television and in the corridors of athletic commissions—this despite the attention showered on women who touched upon boxing on game shows or comedy programs. Seemingly, as long as women remained outside the ring they could be tolerated. The view also carried over into the day-to-day lives of the women who plied the boxing circuit. As noted by Kugler, reminiscing about her experiences, from time to time, padlocked doors greeted fighters when they showed up in the hours before the scheduled bout because local authorities had canceled the match. This even happened at one of Johnny Nate’s scheduled shows at The Arena in South Bend because the authorities didn’t like the fact that “Phil Kugler” was actually “Phyllis.”
“We had a huge fight out of the ring just to get into the ring,” she said. “It was very hard.”[52]
The fans were another story. There was a ready acceptance of these women by the paying public who came out to support them—and by the trainers and promoters who worked with the women and insisted on pushing for opportunities in the sport they loved, even if for some promoters it was just an opportunity to make a buck or two.
Some in the boxing world were genuinely supportive. During her trip to New York with Kugler to appear on The Steve Allen Show, Hagen met Jack Dempsey at his restaurant in New York. She told a reporter that after she had asked him for his autograph, he’d asked her for hers. Given how Dempsey had lauded women in the ring as early as the 1920s, it is no surprise that he would have shown some excitement at meeting Hagen.[53]
A History of Women's Boxing Page 18