A History of Women's Boxing

by Malissa Smith

  November came and went, however, without a ruling from the NYSAC. Any potential for a fight between the two women was also seemingly lost—though both continued to work out at the gym as diligently as before. Finally in December, with no word having been issued, Tonawanda, through her attorney, served notice that she would seek legal redress. In response, the NYSAC adamantly insisted that her application, along with Trimiar’s, was still being considered.

  The NYSAC made the point that since women’s boxing was illegal, rules prohibiting female fights would have to be overturned before the licenses could be issued. A spokesman for the commission added that it takes “four to six weeks to clear [fingerprints] through the FBI and the State Criminal Investigation Division.” He also stated, “The chairman sent a general letter out, polling people within boxing . . . people like promoters, managers, referees, judges and doctors for their reactions. The most important reactions and opinions will be that of the doctors.” The latter, of course, related to the ongoing idea that female physiognomy lacked the stamina and physical attributes to withstand “vigorous” sports.

  In response to the long delay, Tonawanda filed a sex discrimination complaint with the state’s Human Rights Commission, claiming that the NYSAC’s “refusal to act on her application . . . had violated her constitutional rights.” Her attorney, Stanley N. Soloman, claimed the delay was “unduly denying [his client] the right to earn a living.”[31]

  With headlines that read “Girl Boxer Loses Round,” the press reported on a letter issued by the NYSAC denying Tonawanda and Trimiar a license to box in New York State. The letter read:

  Your application for a license to box in New York State was considered by the Commission at a meeting on January 16, 1975.

  The matter of licensing women boxers is regulated by Rule 2015.15 of Part 205, the Commission Its Powers and Procedures, of the rules promulgated by the Commission which reads as follows:

  205.15 Disqualification of women. No woman may be licensed as a boxer or second or licensed to compete in any wrestling with men.

  Please be advised that the Commission after considering your application and reviewing its rules and regulations unanimously denied your application for a license to box in this State.[32]

  From the perspective of Tonawanda’s legal counsel, the argument in part came down to an interpretation of the rule. Soloman argued that since it allowed wrestling between women, it must also allow women to box. The only prohibition was against women who wrestled male opponents, and since Tonawanda was only asking for a license to box women, it was moot. Chairman of the NYSAC Edwin B. Dooley didn’t see it that way, vehemently stating, “The rule was passed by the state legislature in 1928 and it is our duty to enforce it. The board feels that the rule means ‘no woman may box’—period.”

  Aside from the ruling, Tonawanda had sought and been granted a “show-cause order demanding that the board tell the court why a license should not be granted,” to be answered in New York State Supreme Court in early February, pending any last minute motions.[33]

  In an affidavit issued to the court on February 4, Commissioner Dooley argued:

  The image that boxing presents to the public is all important to its acceptability as a professional sport. It is “the manly art of self-defense”. The licensing of women as professional boxers would at once destroy the image that attracts serious boxing fans and brings professional boxing into disrepute among them, to the financial detriment of those whose livelihoods depend upon this activity.

  Neither is the Commission satisfied that women boxers would not be unduly endangering their reproductive organs and breasts; despite the use of whatever protective devices may be available. The avoidance of serious physical injury is a major responsibility of the Commission.

  Finally, the Commission is not satisfied that there are a sufficient number of qualified women available as professional competition for petitioner.[34]

  While waiting for the next move in court, and hoping to impress the NYSAC with her prowess as a boxer, Tonawanda agreed to participate in a kickboxing exhibition against a 155-lb. male kickboxer from Philadelphia named Larry Rodania. The bout was to be a “keynote” of the Oriental World of Self Defense show promoted by martial arts impresario Grandmaster Aaron Banks. Scheduled for the main arena at Madison Square Garden on June 7, 1975, the show had previously been held at the Felt Forum. Banks had moved it to the arena the previous year and managed to fill the stands with twenty thousand fans—an unheard-of number for a martial arts show. He was hoping to top that record with his mixed-gender kickboxing bout. Not only would Jackie Tonawanda be the first woman to fight in the ring at Madison Square Garden, but also she’d be doing it fighting against a man.

  Kickboxing was a brand-new sport that had gained popularity since it was first established in Japan in the early 1960s. It incorporated elements from traditional martial arts such as karate with a sprinkling of Muay Thai and other more traditional fighting styles thrown in, plus Western-style boxing. Not unlike French savate, kickboxing is actually contested in a boxing ring rather than on a mat, as with traditional martial arts competitions.

  The sport was unbounded by boxing and wrestling commissions, so women were able to compete unfettered by the legal wrangling that so many female boxers faced. International karate competition in particular had opened itself to allow women’s divisions, and kickboxing had already seen mixed-gender fighting in the United States.

  In preparation for the fight, Tonawanda trained vigorously with David Vasquez, a well-respected bantamweight champion, and even managed to drop down to 160 pounds, hoping to be lighter on her feet as she entered the ring. “The less I weigh the faster I can move around in the ring, and I have to be fast to counter his feet kicks,” she was quoted as saying.[35] Speaking with another reporter, she told her, “I’ve got my whole purse riding on a second round knockout,” and went on to predict that her win would be in the second round by none other than a KO.[36]

  True to her word, Tonawanda used her superior boxing skills to knock out her opponent with a hard right in the second round of the five-round bout. Speaking about the match a few days later, she expressed disappointment that the outcome of the match was barely reported. “I did what I predicted and took him out in the second on a solid punch. So why is it that everyone is asking me three days later, who won the bout?”

  Ultimately it didn’t matter. “Hear[ing] the crowd chanting ‘Jackie, Jackie’” spurred her on, and she loved that it took her “nearly two hours to get out of the place because everyone wanted autographs. And you’d better believe I signed them all.”[37]

  Approximately ten days after her fight, the Supreme Court came out with its ruling on Jackie Tonawanda’s case. This time the NYSAC had put in a countermotion arguing that the case be thrown out based upon her alleged failure to state a cause of action—meaning since the NYSAC had answered why the license wasn’t granted, the case should be thrown out.

  Justice Harry B. Frank, writing for the court, felt otherwise. He ruled in part that the denial of professional boxing licenses to women was based on “highly questionable” arguments. He further wrote, “Patronizing male chauvinism of this type not only has no place in our legal system, but should not be countenanced at any level in our society.” Finally arguing, “This court will not hold that women should be precluded from professionally exploiting whatever skills they may have in the sport of boxing merely because they are women,” he directed that Tonawanda should amend her petition to sue the NYSAC for denying her a license to box.

  While the law had not been struck down per se, the speciousness of the arguments offered by the NYSAC were such that in the justice’s opinion, Tonawanda should sue to do precisely that: have the law overturned. Having chosen not to, the rule remained in place.

  Another case was opened on the other side of the country in Virginia City, Nevada. Caroline Svendsen, a thirty-four-year-old construction worker, part-time cocktail waitress, mother of a nineteen-year-ol
d daughter, and grandmother of a five-year-old grandson, had taken up boxing in her spare time. She eventually met up with boxing manager Ted Walker, who thought she had the talent to become a fighter. Walker also believed it a good time to promote women in the boxing ring.

  On July 3, 1975, a couple of weeks after Jackie Tonawanda’s win in New York State Supreme Court, Caroline Svendsen walked into the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NAC) office in Garnerville, Nevada, and filled out the application forms for a license to box. Svendsen was hoping to become the first woman in Nevada to become legally sanctioned. Her plan was to have her debut bout on a professional fight card scheduled for September 19 in Virginia City, a fight card that her manager was helping to put together.

  Seemingly wanting to give it a fair hearing, the commission agreed to review Svendsen’s application at their regular monthly meeting the following Thursday. The executive secretary of the NAC, Jim Deskin, had told reporters that they would be seeking a “medical evaluation from three Las Vegas doctors as to whether a woman boxer could be injured by punches to the breasts” ahead of their decision. Deskin also expressed skepticism about the whole thing, asking rhetorically, “Who’s she going to fight?” given that she was the only woman applying for a license to box.[38]

  The following week, the NAC met and actually granted her a license—making Svendsen the first woman in the state of Nevada to hold a professional boxing license. According to Bill Dickson, who became an important promoter of women’s boxing beginning in 1976 and through the 1980s in Nevada, this was not their first go-around with the NAC. While the newspapers had dutifully reported on Svendsen’s application and the NAC’s rapid approval, Svendsen had actually already been turned down once before, and it was only due to the impending threat of a lawsuit that the NAC relented and gave her the license.[39]

  Quoted in the press after Svendsen had been granted her license, Walker said, “My fighter probably will start her career in September by taking on another woman in Virginia City.”[40] The first order of business was to come up with a likely opponent and ensure that she would be licensed in time for the September 19 card under the promotional hand of Charlie Palmer, a regular on the Nevada fight scene.

  By mid-August, the NAC was beginning to get cold feet, with reports that they were delaying approval of the match set to be on the undercard of the ten-round heavyweight main event between Terry Hinke and Harold Carter. The delay in part was due to the absence of a confirmed opponent for Svendsen.

  Three weeks later, at the beginning of September, Jim Deskin decided to voice his concerns about the fight with the announcement that he was recommending that the NAC only allow the fight to go forward if it was labeled an exhibition.

  “Nobody has seen two women fight,” he said. “Two women haven’t fought in the United States yet.” While he evidently had no knowledge of the high caliber of women’s boxing that had taken place in the 1950s—or of the fact that Barbara Buttrick and Phyllis Kugler had fought a licensed bout in San Antonio, Texas, in 1957—he also seemed unaware of the pockets of terrifically skilled female boxers who were fighting to get licensed in other locales.

  Svendsen was disappointed to learn of the change, and although she told the press, “It doesn’t make any difference to me,” she clearly wanted the fight to be sanctioned. She went on to say:

  I’d like it to be a fight. We’ve got to start somewhere. I definitely want it to be a real fight. I wouldn’t want to spend my whole career fighting exhibitions because no state wanted to be first. I think they’re trying to keep me out. I have my license and I’m qualified. As long as it’s going to be a girl fighting another girl, why should anyone object to it?[41]

  As this was going on, Ted Walker had found a likely opponent in Connie Costello, a twenty-eght-year-old woman from Drain, Oregon (though some accounts showed her as coming from Salem). He wasn’t ready to announce it just yet. When Walker did, the following day, the matter of the bout being an exhibition was settled. Costello, who was also a novice in the ring, was accepted as an opponent, and the four-round match was approved on the fight card as an exhibition bout.

  The next order of business was to continue training for the fight plus the usual array of prefight promotion, including the public workouts scheduled over three days during the week before the match.

  Svendsen had been in training for the bout at the Clear Creek Job Corps Center since July, but the ritual of the open workout was something new for her. In fact, she’d never had an actual fight other than sparring sessions during her training. Reporting on the public opening, to which the press was invited, Steve Sneddon of the Reno Evening Gazette headlined his piece “Caroline Svendsen Scared?”

  Set at the Silver Queen Saloon in Virginia City, Svendsen in a moment of candor told the press, “I can’t say I’m not scared.” She went on to say, “I’ve talked to guys about their feelings in their first fight, but there aren’t any women to talk to about it.” She also told the press she had no idea what she was afraid of but “[w]hen I thought of working out in front of people I almost threw up.” [42]

  She followed up her remarks saying that while “the publicity bothered her at first . . . ‘just punching the bag last night I realized I could block the public out.’”[43]

  Her jitters aside, she went through a sparring session with fighter Benny Casing in front of two hundred or so fans, acquitting herself well. In fact, she did so well, Connie Costello pulled out of the bout with Ted Walker, telling reporters, “She felt Caroline was too good for her.” Whatever the real reason, Walker was able to replace her the day before the fight with Jean Lange, a thirty-four-year-old fighter originally from Los Angeles but then living in Phoenix, Arizona.

  Lange had previously had one unsanctioned boxing match in 1973—on an Indian Reservation near Sacaton, Arizona—against the well-known wrestler Princess Tona Tomah, who’d been on the scene since the late 1950s but took to boxing in the 1970s. Lange, a meat cutter by trade, was also said to have “wrestled in exhibition matches,” although no mention was ever made as to where or when the bouts occurred. With Lange on board, Walker was able to garner the support of the NAC, which dutifully licensed Lange to box in Nevada, turning around her application in one day pending a medical examination.

  One other final accommodation was made for the “safety” of the women during the match. On fight night, they would both be wearing breast protectors. While nothing more than plastic bra inserts, Svendsen described them as looking “like two Jello molds.” [44] The women also were slated to wear heavy foam “pelvic protectors” said to be “similar to the equipment worn by women bull fighters in Spain.”[45]

  When fight night came, Svendsen, weighing in at 138 lbs., entered the ring like a champ with gold boxing gloves, and within fifty seconds of the first round landed Lange on the canvas after having been hit with two stunning left uppercuts. Lange, who’d weighed in at 134 lbs., lay there for a full twenty seconds after the ten-count before moving. Svendsen had proved that she was indeed a fighter, in front of the twelve hundred fans seated in the outdoor bleachers in the parking lot of the Delta Saloon.

  Elated by her win—and having decided to go for a knockout, thinking a decision for a four-round exhibition bout would soon be forgotten—Svendsen told reporters, “[I] couldn’t believe it when I knocked her out.” Though she admitted, “The scary part was that she didn’t get up after the count of 10.”

  She also told reporters, “I was really nervous about this fight but now the first fight jitters are out of me.” She was ready for the bouts her manager had put in motion for her in Oregon. Asked about Lange, Svendsen said, “Either they get hurt or I get hurt. She was out to get me down fast . . . only I was stronger.”

  Lange said she was impressed with Svendsen’s fighting ability, though she couched it by saying, “She showed me a few good punches . . . but that’s about it. Next time I’ll be in shape to take her.” Lange also claimed that she’d only had one day to prepare for the fight and h
adn’t been in the gym for six months.[46]

  The next big hurdle for Svendsen was gaining permission from the boxing authorities in Oregon to fight. Nick Sckavone, chairman of the Portland Municipal Boxing and Wrestling Commission (Portland Boxing Commission), was quoted as saying:

  My first reaction, and it’s a personal one, is that I don’t care for it. It’s rude and it’s crude, two women fighting in a ring. . . . I’m certainly not going to fight Women’s Lib. I’ll go along with the majority and trend of time, I’ll have to.[47]

  Despite his feelings, he called for a special commission meeting to vote on the issue. At the meeting, authorization was given by a margin of 3-2 to hold a boxing match between Svendsen and boxer Jennie Josephs from Menteca City, California. Sckavone himself had cast the winning vote, breaking a 2-2 tie.

  The bout was set for October 23 at the Multnomah County Exposition Center and, as agreed, would be “a regulation match, not an exhibition.”[48] This all boded well for a successful first women’s fight in Oregon, and in the days leading up to it everything seemed to be going well. There was no further interference from the Portland Boxing Commission and both fighters were in training. The day before the fight, however, Jennie Josephs had to withdraw having come down with a bad case of the flu and laryngitis.

  Walker, wanting to make sure the fight would still go on, wasted no time. He immediately got in contact with Jean Lange. As if she’d only been sitting by the phone waiting for the call, she flew from Phoenix to Portland on two and a half hours’ notice. Lange was game for the challenge, telling the press she’d been training “ever since [Caroline Svendsen] beat me the first time,” and had also kept her weight to 134 lbs.[49]