A History of Women's Boxing

by Malissa Smith

  In Kugler’s case, acceptance—or at least opportunities—meant following her trainer Johnny Nate’s keen advice to wear dresses outside of the squared circle. She also tried to drum up fights by keeping herself in the public eye. Kugler was an attractive blond with cascading hair that fell past her shoulders. She put on exhibitions of her speed-bag prowess at such places as “car shows, openings and other [promotional] events,” putting her own spin on it by doing it blindfolded. Despite all of her efforts at self-marketing and fitting in long hours in the gym to perfect her craft, it was not until her appearances on television that her family and others in her community in South Bend began to accept what she was doing. Even then, it did not stop her mother from being upset when she came home with a broken nose.

  All the publicity work by Hagen and Kugler pushing for acceptance on a national stage seemed to pay off when their originally scheduled November meeting—postponed so the pair could go to New York—was rebooked for December 13, 1956. The match was billed as a “world’s women’s championship,” and was the main event at a planned variety show to be held at St. Joseph High School in South Bend, a two-minute walk from Johnny Nate’s place on North Hill Street. Press coverage was local, though with reporters as far afield as Kugler’s home state of Michigan set to attend, Kugler hoped that one or more articles might make it onto the wires.

  From the opening bell of round one Hagen was clearly the attacker against Kugler (who had for some unknown reason insisted on wearing a helmet in the ring) and continued as such through the first three rounds. The fourth round, however, saw Kugler come back—and people ringside were of the impression that Hagen was stunned as she walked back to her corner at the end of the four-round fight.

  Fans were certain that even with Kugler’s flurry in the fourth, the outcome would find Hagen the victor, whom they judged as winning the bout three rounds to one. Despite this general consensus, Phyllis Kugler ended up being given the nod by split decision along with the title of women’s boxing champion. As the scoring was announced the crowd let loose a torrent of boos and shouts.

  For most in the crowd, including some reporters, Hagen seemed the “clear winner . . . [having sent] Kugler to the canvas once . . . drawing blood from her nose.” Fans did concede that Hagen was a bit dazed at the end, but it did not stop the general feeling that Hagen had been robbed.[54]

  At the time, there was talk that the fight was fixed and a couple of newspaper articles were said to have implied it. In an interview in 2005 with Hagen’s two brothers, Vic and Harvey Verhaegen, both stated their belief that Johnny Nate arranged for Kugler to win to make some extra cash off the fight, but offered no proof other than to speculate on the stories that had circulated soon after the fight.

  In the immediate aftermath of the contest, Hagen had been interviewed and was quoted as saying she was “very anxious to meet Phyllis again—but I’m strictly against her using head gear.” Sometime later, though, she told her brother, “That’s it, I am done with it.” True to her word, and apparently embittered by the experience, she left boxing, eventually joining the U.S. Marines. After she mustered out she married and had a family, rarely speaking of her boxing career. In all, she was said to have fought seventy-seven fights, including some wrestling matches.

  Reminiscing about their sister, who died at the age of seventy-three on February 5, 2004, the brothers proudly traded stories, including an alternative version of how she’d been recruited to box. The story most people had heard was that she’d been “discovered” while playing in a sandlot baseball game. In their version of the story, “She punched a fellow worker” who was “getting fresh” at the local Bendix plant. One of Johnny Nate’s brothers worked at the plant and happened to see her and figured with a fist that could be thrown that hard, she should get into boxing. While Hagen worked with Nate, she helped him build the boxing gym and tavern on North Hill Street and also “tried to teach other women boxers” how to fight—including Phyllis Kugler.[55]

  A few weeks after the Verhaegen interview, Kugler responded to the reports of the fix. Kugler stated:

  I fought my heart out and I never heard anybody ever say it [was fixed] until I read that [speculation]. . . . I think she knew I did [win]. We were not best friends but there was never any animosity. The night it was over, there was never any question about it.

  Asked about the headgear, she said, “Actually, it’s hot and heavy, and it’s hard to see. . . . I never wore one after that. . . . I thought if she got by [without it], I didn’t have to [wear it].”[56]

  Years earlier Kugler admitted that the fight had put a strain on their friendship—and that in fact it was Hagen who had brought her into the gym to meet Johnny Nate after she’d “begged Jo-Ann to let her work out with her at the gym.” They both worked together at a bowling alley in South Bend at the time, before she left to work in a plastics factory as a pressman.[57]

  Their fits and starts of getting onto fight cards very much mirrored the experiences of Barbara Buttrick, who had been struggling to make it as a professional boxer since she first came to London in 1948. By the end of 1955, her career had pretty much come to a standstill with no reported fights for nearly two years until she was offered the opportunity to box Phyllis Kugler in August 1957, followed by a second match in October.

  For their first fight, Kugler and Buttrick were slated to meet in a four-rounder at the municipal baseball field in Pompano Beach, Florida. The fight was apparently a first for the state. The card was sponsored by the local Fraternal Order of Police, and was promoted as a title match to be awarded by Glenn Sheppard, who was not only a boxing promoter but also a member of the Florida Boxing Commission. Both women agreed to wear twelve-ounce gloves for the bout, something Buttrick found “too paddy,” and they also both agreed to help out with promotion. Kugler sparred with “Rocky Randell, the Georgia lightweight, on the showroom floor of Sheppard’s Buick Dealership,” while Buttrick touted her fight “at the Magic City Gym in Miami Beach” where she trained ahead of the match.[58]

  As usual, Buttrick came in shorter and lighter. Having not fought in a while may have been telling as well since the four-round bout was called a draw. Along with the boxing show, Kugler was given an award as the “Fraternal Order of Police, Woman Boxer and Boxing’s Beauty Queen of the Year.”[59]

  The second meeting between Buttrick and Kugler was momentous on several fronts. To begin with, the fight’s promoter, Jimmie Scaramozi, a former lightweight, was able to do something no one in memory had achieved—a fully sanctioned women’s boxing match complete with duly issued boxing licenses from the Texas Commission of Labor for both Buttrick and Kugler. Additionally, it was one of very few—if any—boxing matches between female fighters held in Texas, and while women’s wrestling had become a popular feature in San Antonio, no one had ever thought to promote a female boxing bout. Scaramozi also planned on taking the two fighters on an exhibition tour shortly after to capitalize on the fight and to help promote future fight cards.

  The six-rounder, billed as the “Women’s World Championship Fight,” was to be held at the San Antonio Municipal Auditorium as the co-feature to the main event between middleweights Eloy Ellez and Sanitago Guttierez, two up-and-coming Texas fighters. On the handbill for the card, Kugler was listed as “Indiana’s Blonde Bombshell,” while Buttrick was headlined as “England’s Mighty Atom Of The Ring.”[60]

  Both women came to San Antonio two days prior to the fight to appear in a public workout at the Downtown Athletic Club, giving the press their first look at them. It was Buttrick who impressed the crowd of onlookers. A reporter for the San Antonio Express began his piece, “A large number of San Antonio Fans got away from their television and radio sets . . . to watch a little English Girl workout,” further noting “the group agreed [she] knows a thing or two about the manly art of self-defense.”

  In the workout, Buttrick sparred “two Fast Rounds with Earnest Ramon, a San Antonio Bantamweight” who “learned early” that she �
��knew how to use her fists.” Her shots were reported as “straight and true” with particular emphasis placed on her left jab–right cross combination.[61]

  On fight night, Buttrick proved to be unstoppable, assaulting Kugler with a continuous barrage of hard shots that saw Kugler with a dark shiner under her left eye midway through the match. Buttrick easily won every round and came away with the decision and the first sanctioned women’s boxing title.

  As the San Antonio Light put it:

  The fiery little Britisher won every round and blooded the nose of the blond from South Bend, Ind. Buttrick displayed a sharp left jab and a grim determination as she forced the fight with her outclassed opponent, billed as the world’s women’s bantamweight champion.[62]

  The Associated Press also put out a story and a photo on the wires that was reprinted across the country extolling Buttrick’s “deadly right.” The photo carried the headline “Female Fury in Texas Boxing Ring.”[63]

  The San Antonio Express also lauded Buttrick’s abilities, writing: “From the opening Round, Little Barbara, quick as a cat, peppered her foe with lightening lefts to the head and face and followed through with right hand shots to the body.”[64]

  While the fight was a success, the box office numbers were not. The stadium, which held thousands, only brought in 731 paying customers, though Scaramozi contended that he intended to bring in more female fighters to contest in San Antonio.

  The next blow came two days after the fight when the state athletic commission canceled the planned Buttrick-Kugler “fistic tour.” The reason given was that the weight difference between the two fighters—reported to be 23½ pounds—was greater than the regulation six pounds. As one paper put it, “The laugh is that [Barbara] defeated Phyllis, who wasn’t in Barbara’s class as a boxer, is the weightier one.” The writer also opined that Kugler would have to lose an arm to make up the weight difference.

  Mickey Riley, Buttrick’s trainer, was incensed, stating, “This is discrimination. Women boxers are required to weigh in. Women wrestlers are allowed to give an estimated weight.”[65] Regardless of the arguments, what had seemed like a promising new beginning for women’s boxing turned out to be something of a bust. Still, The Ring magazine recognized the fight for what it was when it listed it in its Fights of the Month section, along with a photograph from the bout.

  Buttrick did not have any fights following her decisive win. Apparently the boom/bust cycle of women’s boxing was still in effect, although, as reported in the Albuquerque Tribune, Buttrick signed on for a bout against boxer Mary Himes, another South Bend fighter who weighed in at about 128 pounds. The match was promoted by Louis “Red” Valencia and scheduled to be put on at the Civic Auditorium in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the lead-in to the main event, between two welterweights, but it seems that it never came to pass.

  In the interim, Buttrick moved to Miami Beach with her husband and began working out at the world-famous Fifth Street Gym. Becoming a regular at the gym, she worked out as often as she could—the only woman in the gym—and was instantly respected by the fighters and trainers there for her toughness. She was even sought out by fighters close to her weight looking to tune up for fights, and she otherwise kept her ears open for opportunities.

  Of Buttrick’s time in the gym, Angelo Dundee, famed for training Muhammad Ali at the Fifth Street Gym, was quoted as saying she was “a perfect English Lady until she climbed through the ropes. Then she transformed from a duchess into a lioness in the blink of an eye.” She also worked alongside such boxers as the young Muhammad Ali (known as Cassius Clay at the time), Emile Griffith, and Willie Pep.[66]

  Her next—and, as it turned out, last—professional fight was held on October 1, 1959, at the North Miami Armory. The fight was a four-rounder with Chico Vejar—having just gone ten rounds himself on the card’s main event—acting as the referee. A first for women’s boxing in the Miami area, the fight was against Gloria Adams who, while weighing in at 116 pounds, was at least 145 pounds when she walked into the ring. The contest was very hard fought with Gloria able to land her “jolting left” on Buttrick’s jaw, but she proved no match for Buttrick, who out-boxed her throughout the bout to take a unanimous decision.

  Buttrick continued to train following the fight, but stopped in 1960 after learning she was four months pregnant. Her heart remained with boxing throughout her life and especially so when she became active again in the sport on the other side of the ropes beginning in the 1970s.

  When measuring the skills and abilities of women boxers in the 1950s, the boxing matches between Buttrick, Hagen, and Kugler stand out. Each fought one another in tough matches with evident skill, ring savvy, and toughness. That some of the fights were contested or unnoticed seemed par for the course. But to the enduring credit of these outstanding practitioners of the sweet science, their love of the sport kept them in the game.

  For Buttrick, that love meant leaving her home in England to find opportunities to box in America—opportunities that were still hard to come by and necessitated her to don wrestler’s togs in order to fight at all. For other women it meant enduring the ridicule of family and the hardscrabble life of working by day and boxing by night just to get a chance to fight.

  1. Alvin Steinkopf. “Girl Boxer Baffles Boxer.” Telegraph, April 7, 1949, p. 22. [Google News]

  2. Victoria Murphy. “Barbara Buttrick: World Pays Tribute to Brit Champ Boxer.” Mirror, October 30, 2010, n.p. [Mirror.co.uk)

  3. “Boxing for the Ladies.” Townsville Daily Bulletin, October 12, 1948, p. 2. [British Newspaper Archive]

  4. “Girl Boxer Banned from Public Ring.” Gloucestershire Echo, January 11, 1949, p. 3. [British Newspaper Archive]

  5. Daily Mail, November 11, 1948, p. 4. [British Newspaper Archive]

  6. “They Train on Underdone Beefsteaks.” Northern Times, November 11, 1948. [National Library of Australia]

  7. “Challengers.” Daily Derby Telegraph, November 17, 1948, p. 8. [British Newspaper Archive]

  8. “Girl Boxer Banned from Public Ring.” Gloucestershire Echo, January 11, 1949, p. 3. [British Newspaper Archive]

  9. “Women Boxers, Bouts Officially Frowned On.” Northern Miner, December 13, 1948, p. 2. [National Library of Australia]

  10. “Weaker Sex!” Central Queensland Herald, March 3, 1949, p. 18. [National Library of Australia]

  11. “Girl Boxer.” British Pathe. 1949. [Britishpathe.com]

  12. “Woman Boxer Waits.” Evening Telegraph, February 9, 1949, p. 9. [British National Archives]

  13. “Girl Boxer Show Goes On.” Dundee Courier, February 10, 1949, p. 3. [British National Archives]; Winnipeg Free Press, February 15, 1949, p. 5. [Ancestry.com]

  14. “Girl Boxing Act Defies Opposition.” Hull Daily Mail, February 10, 1949, p. 3. [British Newspaper Archive]

  15. “Barbara: Can Box or Can She?” Milwaukee Journal, February 12, 1949, p. 16. [Google News]

  16. “Battling Barbara Not to Fight.” The Argus, February 14, 1949, p. 16. [British National Archives]

  17. “Barbara Will Not Fight Bert after All.” Aberdeen Journal, February 17, 1949, p. 4. [British National Archives]

  18. Kilburn Empire Theater. Advertisement. March 1949. [Malissa Smith Collection]

  19. “Barbara Packs 700lb. Punch” Evening Standard, March 8, 1949. [Malissa Smith Collection]

  20. “Girl Boxer Gives Stage Exhibition.” Yorkshire Post, March 8, 1949, n.p. [Malissa Smith Collection]

  21. “Cottingham Girl Will Box at Secret Rendezvous.” Hull Daily Mail, March 26, 1949, p. 1. [British Newspaper Archive]

  22. “Girl Boxer’s Challenge.” Sunday Herald, April 10, 1949, p. 24. [British National Archives]

  23. A copy of a publicity handout from the early 1990s entitled “Barbara Buttrick: Sensational English Girl Flyweight Boxer” lists a total of twenty-six fights, with the proviso that “She had more wins which are not recorded here.” [Malissa Smith Collection]

  24. Alvin Steinkopf. “Girl Bo
xer Baffles Britons: She Wants Board to Approve Sport for Women.” Telegraph, April 7, 1940, p. 22. [Google News]

  25. “The Fair Sex in a Tough Sport.” An Illustrated Chronicle of West County Boxing. Vol. 2, no. 9, September 1949, p. 9. [Google Books]

  26. “Sports Gossip: Girls’ Fight Off.” Hull Daily Mail, July 26, 1949, p. 6. [British Newspaper Archive]

  27. Tom Archdeacon. “Barbara Beacon Has Renewed Love Affair with Boxing.” Miami News, June 7, 1980, p. B1. [Google News]

  28. “‘Keep Chin Down, Guard Up’ ex-Boxer Advises Daughters.” Free Lance-Star, March 21, 1972, p. 11. [Google News]

  29. Berkley-Post Herald, June 20, 1950, p. 6. [Ancestry.com]

  30. “‘Powder Puff’ Boxing Match.” Traverse City Record Eagle, June 20, 1950, p. 13. [Ancestry.com]