A History of Women's Boxing

by Malissa Smith

  The positive press was bringing attention to what had once been called a sideshow attraction in the mix of entertainment at the casinos. The economics of that sideshow were another matter, and women’s boxing began to attract big-time promoters. According to Bill Dickson, Bob Arum of Top Rank, upon hearing the hoopla about women’s boxing, came to the Silver Slipper to watch a bout. It happened to be the third matchup between Lavonne Ludian, who was becoming a major draw on the fight cards, and Princess Red Star Kibby.

  Their two previous outings had ended in the win column for Kibby on points. For this go-round, Kibby had added a new weapon to her arsenal—she would switch to a southpaw stance at opportune moments during the fight. The bout itself was a regular Wednesday “Strip Fight of the Week” contest, although it was being promoted as a welterweight championship bout. Given Ludian’s popularity and the moniker of a “title fight,” the night’s draw was $6,400, a record haul. The promoters even held up the start time to allow the maximum crowd to come into the ballroom. To garner even more publicity, promoter Tim Miller had put in a request to the Nevada State Athletic Commission to up the number of rounds to either five or six, with the argument that both fighters were experienced. Permission wasn’t granted, so the women were held to the original four-rounder.

  The fight, held on March 9, 1977, was “action-packed” from the start, and although Ludian was three inches taller with a longer reach, by the end of the fight she was said to have had two black eyes. The verdict after four rounds of boxing was a draw—to the consternation of the crowd of around eight hundred fight fans, who gave the win to Kibby. As one newspaper account put it, the verdict was “lustily booed” by the “standing room only” spectators.[40] Reporters and even Ludian’s own team, if Kibby was to be believed, scored the fight in the win column for Princess Red Star. This included the UPI account, which gave Ludian “a slight edge in the opening round” due to her “lethal jab,” but Kibby the other three for outworking Ludian by “land[ing] numerous left and right hooks and overhand rights.”[41]

  Princess Red Star was understandably upset, telling columnist Don Terbush, “They wanted to give me the [title] trophy but I said no. If it was really a draw I couldn’t take the trophy.”[42]

  Whatever the actual scoring for the fight, Bill Dickson claimed that Bob Arum was “very impressed” with what he saw. Arum was so impressed that he spoke to Dickson about arranging for Ludian and Kibby to appear on the undercard of his upcoming Ernie Shavers versus Howard Smith fight at the Aladdin Hotel—to be televised nationally on CBS Sports Spectacular.[43] The card was to be broadcast on Saturday, April 16, 1977, at 4:30 p.m. (EST) and was also to include the pro debut of Olympic gold medalist Michael Spinks fighting Pat Barry. (It was eventually even on TV listings as the Women’s Middleweight Championships.)

  The Ludian-Kibby fight—a fourth rematch—would also come with an enormous payday. Both women would be paid $2,500—a record for professional women boxers as far as anyone knew—plus national exposure for the sport that was taking Las Vegas by storm. Also added to the fight was an additional women’s undercard bout between Darlene Buckskin and Sue TL Fox. They, too, would be given a huge payday, but because of the difference in their weights, their bout was to be called an exhibition.

  Within a few days, Top Rank disclosed it wanted to sign each of the four women to an exclusive one-year contract. According to the contract, each of them would not only fight on April 16 but also be offered the possibility of three additional fights with successive paydays of $4,000, $5,000, and $6,000. For fighters who at the time were earning a couple of hundred dollars a fight, that was extraordinary money and opportunity.[44]

  Fighter LaVonne Ludian, in speaking about the offer some time later, told a reporter:

  Boxers have a short amount of time to make money. Especially as a female, I have a shorter amount of time. Why take 30 fights all over the country when I can get the same amount of money in three fights? You always have to think about a broken nose or a cut.[45]

  On fight night at the Aladdin, the crowd was decidedly behind their hometown favorite, LaVonne Ludian, to win the Nevada State Women’s Welterweight Championship. The fight, though, belonged to Princess Red Star from the moment of the opening bell. She “bobbed and weaved,” slipped punches and swarmed Ludian with punches, later telling reporters that “sparring and . . . harder workouts really helped” her prepare for the fight.

  Kibby won over the crowd from the second round and by the fourth had “stunned [Ludian] up against the ropes with a right hand to the face,” and she was given the unanimous decision at the end of the fourth and final round—along with the championship.[46] Brief notices about the fight in the press the next day noted that she had “pounded out a unanimous decision.”[47]

  What went unreported was that “Ludian had the flu and was very ill . . . [but] fought anyway.” According to Sue Fox, the response from the television-viewing public was “negative” leading Top Rank to “later withdraw their offer”—a huge setback for all four women.[48] Arum had been quoted as saying, “Women’s boxing is ridiculous. Women should be home making babies.”[49]

  Years later, in 1987, Arum claimed Ludian started crying from a blow—embarrassing him and the CBS executives watching the bout:

  Women’s boxing is ridiculous. I promoted one bout for CBS-TV in 1977. It was between an Indian woman [Princess Red Star Kibby] and a woman casino dealer [LaVonne Ludian] in the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. When [Princess Red Star] hit the dealer in the nose the dealer stopped fighting and started crying all over the place. The people booed and the network complained and I swore that Saturday afternoon that I’d never promote another women’s bout.[50]

  Arum reiterated his perspective in 1994, having remained true to his word; however, he did begin to promote women’s boxing shortly thereafter when other promoters’ fights began to hit it big-time on pay-per-view.

  The fight scene in Nevada recovered quickly from the unfortunate turn of events surrounding the Top Rank promotion of the Ludian-Kibby fight. Bouts were still as popular as ever. Sue TL Fox, along with fighter Gwen Gemini, who had been meeting with success boxing in the Nevada and California boxing shows, both appeared on Tom Snyder’s late-night program, Tomorrow, in July of that year. For the episode, a boxing ring was set up in the studio and the two put on an exhibition fight before joining their manager, Dee Knuckles, on camera to talk about the sport.

  About midway through 1978, however, the fight scene in Nevada began to slow down. Bill Dickson recalled that there were problems getting fighters, and those who did fight were often badly mismatched. Fights between women were still occurring in other locales—including California, Oregon, Illinois, Ohio, Utah, and Texas—which kept the sport alive, although the Cincinnati Boxing and Wrestling Commission “refus[ed] to all women to box because of ‘the difference in their anatomy to men,’ in January 1977 even though female fights were legal elsewhere in the state.”[51]

  Sue Fox, speaking of the end of her professional career in this period, said she “couldn’t get any fights except tough, tough, fights.” Elaborating, she said, “When I first went into boxing I was scientific. At the end of my career I was a little slugger. I [even] had my jaw knocked out three times.” Tired of the struggle waged out of the ring to get recognition and a fair shake, she also began to worry about her future. After three years in the mix she hung up her gloves, in part because she didn’t want to risk further injury and because it was time to pursue a “real” job. For her, that meant joining law enforcement where she enjoyed a successful career for many years.[52]

  Las Vegas’s position as the center of women’s boxing continued for some period to come. Printed ratings for the top women’s boxers began appearing in Boxing Illustrated magazine. According to Sue Fox the ratings listed under the heading of the Women’s Boxing Federations were based on the relative popularity of the fighters and were selected by a group in Las Vegas that included Vern Stevenson, who later formed the Women
’s World Boxing Association (WBBA) followed by the International Women’s Boxing Association (IWBA) a few years later. They also didn’t just include the names of fighters in the Nevada scene—although many, particularly in the welterweight division of those early rankings, often fought there.

  By November 1977 a sampling of the ranked boxers included such fighters as Margie Dunson from Maine, listed as the welterweight champion (though this was questionable because of her many losses to Cat Davis). Others in the division included Diane Syverson, Theresa Kibby, and LaVonne Ludian.

  In all, there were about thirty-five fighters listed in the November 1977 ratings. The ranks swelled up to around forty by August of 1978, and by April of 1979 the listing had grown to some fifty names, reflecting the changing landscape of professional women’s boxing. This included a growing number of states that were legalizing female participation in sport, which in turn created more opportunities for fights and the potential for more women to enter the ranks.[53]

  The Amateurs: Round One

  The controversies surrounding women’s boxing continued fairly unabated despite a growing professional boxing scene. Problems still swirled around jurisdictions that refused to allow women to fight and the sensationalism surrounding those who managed to win court cases. Opportunities to fight in the amateurs were also proving difficult, even though a healthy amateur boxing program would be the best avenue to allow young women the opportunity to learn their craft under the supervision of trainers, coaches, and the strict set of rules that governed amateur contests.

  One case involving an eleven-year-old girl named Amber “Jim” Hunt from Salt Lake City, Utah, drew a lot of notoriety nationwide. Hunt’s amateur boxing career called into question not only “girls’ boxing” but also the point at which sensationalizing such endeavors becomes exploitative, especially when it comes to children.

  Amber Jim Hunt was mad for boxing. In December 1976 she began making her way through the local junior Golden Gloves, bloodying the nose of her first opponent and knocking out her second opponent one week later “at 55 seconds into the second round.” She also made it into a national press that couldn’t resist her fondness for the kind of poetry Muhammad Ali loved to espouse prior to his bouts. She recited one before her second fight:

  You asked me who?

  Freddie’s his name.

  He’ll go out in round two.

  Hunt had come with her brothers to a boxing training program for kids, and as her trainer, Mike Bullock, said, “They quit. She stayed.” Hunt, who once told a reporter she was a reincarnation of Babe Didrikson, also excelled at other sports including track and swimming, but as she said, “I like to beat up boys, to show them what a girl can do.” Her father, Jack Hunt, a practicing Buddhist, also spoke to reporters, telling them she’d initially gotten into sports at the age of seven because she was overweight. He was also identified as being unemployed and on welfare.[54]

  The following January Amber Hunt hit the national press—but not for her boxing prowess, which included an 8-0 record. Beginning in early December she had struck up a correspondence with convicted murderer Gary Gilmore shortly before his execution, telling the press she wrote him “because I thought he might be lonely.”

  He had given Hunt and her family over $1,200 worth of gifts, including a “complete 8-millimeter movie outfit,” so that Jack Hunt could take movies of Amber’s fights to help “refine her style.” Asked about the gifts, Hunt said, “Until Gary started helping out, we were too poor to give Amber the things she needed for her career.”[55]

  In mid-February, Hunt hit the national press again when she participated on a local Golden Gloves-PAL card. She entered the tournament with a 9-0 record, but lost a three-round decision to her eleven-year-old opponent. The decided crowd favorite among the three thousand fans viewing the fight at the State Fairgrounds Coliseum in Utah, she wore a shirt emblazoned with the words “Knock ’em out for me,” the last words Gary Gilmore had written to her. Clearly disappointed, Hunt said, “Everybody loses. You can’t win all the time, but it [defeat] doesn’t feel good.” As for the shirt, Hunt told the press it was her father’s idea.[56]

  By April Hunt had amassed a 13-4 record with ten knockouts. She still professed her love of the sport and stated her goal was to fight in the Olympics. As she readied to appear in an exhibition bout on April 26, 1977, at the Intermountain AAU Senior Boxing Championships, however, the AAU banned her from further participation in the sport. The ban included any regular competition or exhibition matches held under the auspices of the AAU, although she did actually win a unanimous decision over her opponent in a bout fought at the event despite the ban.

  At issue was a letter sent by National AAU Junior Olympic Committee chairman Jerry Dusenberry to Harry Miller, the chairman of the Intermountain AAU Boxing Committee. In it, Dusenberry stated his belief that Hunt was being used as a “drawing card.” He went on to write, “There is no need to ‘circus-ize’ or prostitute our sport to generate interest” what with the “excellent caliber of boxing in your area as well as competent coaches.”

  It was true that Hunt had been attracting attention as a fighter. Her determination, grit, and fortitude were of interest to people and she had developed a true base of cheering fans—win or lose. From the perspective of the AAU, however, “Permitting a girl to participate in the Junior Olympic or AAU program is unequivocally contrary to the AAU rule and unacceptable.” Going even further Dusenberry rehashed the notion that repeated blows might cause “breast cancer as a result of trauma to the mammary glands” and that “severe force to the abdominal or pelvic area is extremely dangerous to a pregnancy.”

  Although Dusenberry acknowledged that it was unlikely that Hunt was pregnant, he nonetheless added, “But you and I know better. Open sexuality is increasing among younger people today. There are increasingly reports of pre-adolescent abortions at most medical centers.”

  Hunt’s family came into possession of the AAU letter sometime in the late spring or early summer. Reading it, they were aghast at the tone of it and the implications that an eleven-year-old girl might be sexually active. They hired Ronald Stanger—the lawyer who represented Gary Gilmore—to look into filing suit against the AAU. A suit was eventually filed in November in the U.S. District Court of Utah seeking “$100,000 for punitive damages, injunctive release and attorney’s fees,” but it went nowhere.[57] The underlying issues, though, were never truly dealt with. On the one hand was the question of whether an eleven-year-old girl had been unfairly exploited by her family and the local boxing officials. On the other was the question of the spurious science that was underlying the AAU’s refusal to allow girls and women to compete in its amateur programs.

  The state of California had dealt with the pregnancy issues—as had other jurisdictions—by having fighters attest to their not being pregnant or even menstruating on the day of a fight. Some states were even more invasive, requiring medical evidence or examinations, but the net effect was to sanction women’s professional fighting. When it came to breast “health,” states were requiring breast protectors—which were uncomfortable and had cost at least one fighter a bout when she began adjusting one of the “cups” midfight and got “clocked”—but, again, women were still allowed to fight.

  Whatever the outcome with Amber Hunt, the fact that she boxed at all was impressive to some. Writing twenty years later, a woman who had been the same age as Amber remembers feeling that she and her friends were “the children of a new era [who] aspired to greatness.” “That message was reinforced by the newspaper I read. There were stories about amazing kids like Amber Hunt, 11, who was boxing with boys,” a feat that resonated with her throughout her life.[58]

  Two other jurisdictions in the late 1970s or early ’80s also contended with AAU regulations with mixed outcomes. As early as 1975 women began boxing on the campus of the University of Minnesota at Duluth in a program started by Bill Paul, a student and former Air Force regional heavyweight champion. Within a coupl
e of years Paul had about fifteen or so regulars who came to his classes. In speaking with the press about it in June 1977, he told a reporter, “I believe we had the first female boxing bouts in the country on June 1, 1975, at the Duluth campus.”[59] While not exactly true, they were likely the first bouts at the college.

  Later in the summer, Paul, along with three of his fighters, Colleen McCann, Mari Stack, and Sue Carlson, started the International Women’s Professional Boxing Association (IWPBA), hoping to convince Minnesota to legalize women’s professional boxing and promote fight cards. Not too much had come of the IWPBA, but the core group of amateur boxers in the original class were continuing to practice at the University of Minnesota. In the spring, Paul attempted to get a group of boxers onto an AAU boxing card but was prevented from doing so. He was told, “They can have their own bouts to determine state champions in May”; however, the group was described as “bitter” about it and planned to protest by pairing two of the fighters, Joan Marcolt and Debbie “Ginger” Kaufman, to battle “for the state female bantamweight championship.”[60]

  As the month wore on, the IWPBA, representing the women, negotiated with the AAU director, Harry Davis. At issue was the gaining of permission to stage an all-female amateur tournament sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s women’s boxing club under the auspices of the AAU. The date picked was May 12, 1975.

  Given the AAU’s track record in other jurisdictions, there was not a lot of hope that it would agree to allow the bouts to go on. In late April, however, the AAU acceded to the request and helped to charter the IWBA, under whose auspices the tournament was allowed to go forward. This was a first for women’s amateur boxing, although it did not necessarily translate into other similar organizations nationwide.

  Another case involved Jill Lafler, a nineteen-year-old student at a local community college in Lansing, Michigan, who was interested in pursuing opportunities to box in the amateurs. As a member of the Lansing Community College Boxing Club, she already had one successful sanctioned amateur match—defeating her male opponent by unanimous decision at the end of their three-round bout. She loved winning and wanted more of it, and as she said later, “There is professional boxing for women, but you can’t just say, ‘Hey, I’m a pro.’”[61]