A History of Women's Boxing

by Malissa Smith

  Except for one other fight in England—a rematch against Jane Johnson—Gogarty fought exclusively in the United States, making her home in Louisiana and honing her growing complement of skills with Beau Willford. Her first fight in the United States was in Kansas City, Missouri, in January 1993 against Stacey Prestage, ending in a technical draw due to a head butt. She was to go back to Kansas City again to face Prestage for a rematch the following August, having already racked up four quick wins. That rematch also resulted in a draw after six grueling rounds.

  Gogarty, who was becoming known for her stinging jabs and hard left hooks, was invited to fight for the new Women’s International Boxing Association (WIBA) lightweight title shortly after her second Prestage fight. The contest was to be set for October or November of 1993, and according to Gogarty, her originally scheduled opponent was none other than Christy Martin—although that pairing for the championship came to naught. Instead, Gogarty was tapped to fight Prestage for a third time. As Gogarty said, “I was lucky to get matched, mostly because Prestage was my weight and size,”[24] and with that in mind, she made her way back to Kansas City to fight in a ten-rounder on November 23, 1993, where she eventually lost her first bout on points after another hard-fought bruiser.

  Although Gogarty lost her championship bid, she was able to continue to get quality fights, including her next shot at a championship against none other than Laura Serrano for the WIBF lightweight title. The fight was part of the first all-female boxing card and was set for the Aladdin Hotel in Los Vegas on April 20, 1995.

  The card, put together by Barbara Buttrick, was videotaped for later distribution and featured five ten-round world championship title matches and one five-round exhibition bout between the soon-to-be world champion and former kickboxing champion Bonnie Canino and Carol Stinson. The boxers were a veritable United Nations, representing the United States, Belgium, Holland, Ireland, Mexico, Northern Ireland, and Norway, proving that the rise of interest in the sport was truly international.

  Gogarty and Serrano’s bout was set for the main event and they delivered, fighting a fierce, unrelenting battle from the moment the bell rang in the first round. While Gogarty threw her patented hooks and jabs, Serrano gradually overwhelmed her with an onslaught to the body that pushed Gogarty’s stamina to the limit. After taking huge punishment through the fifth and sixth rounds—but never backing down—Gogarty’s manager tossed in the towel to stop the fight at 1:23 into the seventh round. Both fighters fought their hearts out and were repaid by a crowd that was wildly enthusiastic. What had made the bout even more remarkable was that it was only Laura Serrano’s second sanctioned fight as a professional and the caliber of the fighting was truly equal to anything male professionals at that level had to offer.

  Unfortunately for the fighters and Barbara Buttrick in particular, the fights occurred the day after the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing. All of Buttrick’s careful planning and cultivation of the press to ensure their coverage went for naught as every television outlet had pulled their schedule to cover the bombing in Oklahoma City.

  This proved to be catastrophic for Buttrick who had expended a good portion of her personal savings in order to secure the venue and the television rights, and to bring the fighters to Las Vegas, an expense from which she barely recovered. It also was a big setback for women’s boxing as the display of such skilled and talented fighters could have otherwise helped advance the sport as well as the careers of the individual fighters.

  The Fight of the Night

  I like to come in there and brawl. So it was more difficult than I expected. We knew she was tough but not this tough.

  —Christy Martin, March 17, 1996[25]

  As with many events that take on a life of their own, Christy Martin’s appearance against Deirdre Gogarty on the night of March 16, 1996, seemed to be in keeping with all of her other fights. It was a good matchup, but no one quite expected the meteoric aftermath and media frenzy that accompanied Christy’s win. Still, what made Christy a luminary among boxing fans was her appearance against Gogarty on the undercard of heavyweight Mike Tyson’s decidedly uninspired world championship bout against Great Britain’s reigning champion, Frank Bruno.

  For Deirdre Gogarty, the fight was equally unanticipated. Speaking of it in an interview several years ago she said, “Most people expected me to get knocked out in a couple of rounds. I got ten days notice, and arrived in Las Vegas a few days before the fight. I was left out of the hoopla, but got my share later on. It was a good thing for women’s boxing. For the first time people talked about it as a legitimate sport.”[26]

  The matchup, as on other Don King fight cards where he added Martin to his all-male lineup, was third on the list. When it came to the crowd, generally a placement on the early part of the card meant that many of the spectators wouldn’t have yet been seated. For the Martin-Gogarty fight, however, the arena was already full with a near-capacity crowd of boxing fans. The fight was also being televised on pay-per-view, widening the exposure of the bout to millions of households around the world—who also were able to watch the undercard.

  For the fight, Deirdre Gogarty wore a white satin robe, white shirt, and white shorts with a green stripe—clearly aligning herself with her Irish roots—while Martin wore her customary pink satin trunks and a pink satin jacket with white fringe on the sleeves. With the ringing of the bell to start off the first round, Martin came out ready to battle. She was aggressive and fast, and she worked her combinations hard against her equally hard-hitting competitor with the round running even toward the end after a terrific series of combinations from Gogarty that backed Martin up.

  In the second round, Martin dropped Gogarty with a stunning straight right thirty seconds in and was looking to end the fight there and then, even cornering Gogarty with a huge barrage toward the end of the round. Gogarty continued to fight tough though, showing off excellent boxing skills that impressed the on-air announcers as much as the fans—even as Martin continued to show her ring mastery with a series of bombs. By the fourth round, Gogarty had given Martin a bloody nose, but Martin continued to unload with huge combinations even as Gogarty fought off the onslaught—continuing to impress the on-air announcers with the caliber of her fighting.

  The fifth round saw Gogarty landing a straight right that had Martin on the ropes, but Martin used her ring savvy to fight her off and pushed herself back to the center of the ring, gaining the momentum to take the round. The sixth and final round saw more of the same with Martin continuing to throw lefts and rights up until the bell—gaining accolades for both Martin and Gogarty from the on-air announcer, who said they’d showed “brilliant” heart.

  Both women had fought bravely and with courage—two important attributes for fighters of any gender. They’d also showed tremendous boxing skills of the “science” variety and the willingness to take and give punishment.

  Martin proved too much for Gogarty and earned a well-supported unanimous decision from the judges even though she was bleeding badly with what turned out to be a broken nose.

  The boxing extravaganza had been beamed around the world from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Showtime’s pay-per-view channel, with press from all over the world in attendance who were drawn by Mike Tyson’s comeback fight. The battle that resonated with the worldwide audience, though, was the “girl fight,” and it became a seminal moment pinpointing the entry of women’s boxing onto the world stage.

  For fight fans and commentators alike, the image of Martin’s triumphant face, bloodied and flushed red with exertion, brought a new concept to the popular notion of the men’s-only club of professional boxing. Women could box with all of the talent, strength, ring savvy, and fortitude of a man. Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard was quoted as remembering Martin’s “combinations, poise,” and “discipline” in the ring and that “she was perpetual motion.”[27] Equally impressed was the esteemed trainer and HBO ring announcer (prior to his death in 2012) Emanuel Steward, who de
scribed Martin as “in a class by herself.”[28]

  Christy’s achievement was immediately heralded as the “fight of the night” and by the end of the evening, boxing fans the world over began to see why the daughter of a coal miner from the little town of Mullens, West Virginia, was a force to be reckoned with. She was a woman who could fight like a man and wasn’t afraid to take a punch.

  Her efforts even won her recognition from one of the more prestigious boxing sanctions bodies, the WBC. They awarded Martin the title of WBC Women’s Lightweight Champion—although this was an informal nod, as they did not offer actual title belts for female competitors until 2005.

  Martin has been quoted as saying she was “not out to change boxing,”[29] but change it she did by proving that a woman could fight harder than a heavyweight prizefighter of the caliber of a Mike Tyson, whom it is said had asked to see videos of Christy’s past fights at the conclusion of the night.

  In speaking of the fight in an interview for ESPN in 2011, Christy said, “I remember leaving the arena and some reporters coming up to me and saying, ‘Do you realize what you just did? You basically just rocked the world.’”[30]

  Her accomplishment also made Christy Martin a household name beyond the legions of followers of the sport. Within a month of her entry into the high-stakes world of elite professional boxing, she earned a coveted position on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine and was reported on in Time magazine. With the promotion machine in full swing Christy lined up media appearances on The Today Show, Prime Time Live, and Inside Edition.

  With her win against Deirdre Gogarty, Martin had built up an impressive record of twenty-nine wins, two draws, and only one loss. It was also her seventh year as a pro and she was a long way from the Toughwoman contests that had heralded her start in the fight game. What was to come, though, was a veritable pink rush into the ring—something of which Christy was a huge part as she continued to ply her trade as the most recognized woman in boxing.

  The Pink Rush

  A few months after Lady Tyger Trimiar’s month-long hunger strike in the spring of 1987, Top Rank’s Bob Arum had famously stated he’d “never promote another women’s bout.”[31] Arum had not softened his position much by 1994 when he stated that women “make good doctors, lawyers and engineers” in addition to staying at “home making babies.”

  The Christy Martin v. Deirdre Gogarty fight changed all of that. Don King had scored a huge success—a success that translated into financial gain and the chance for a lot more. It was also certainly compelling enough to cause Arum to “evolve” his thinking when it came to promoting female fighters in the ring. The question was what boxer would he sign to a contract and what sort of promotion would he bring to bear as the scramble to sign up female boxers began to have the feel of a “pink” rush.

  There was certainly a pool of talented boxers to choose from. By 1996 fighters who’d been big draws in the late 1970s and 1980s were resurfacing to include Cora and Dora Webber, Del Pettis, Toni Lear Rodriguez, and Britt Van Buskirk. It was a new fighter on the boxing scene, however, who was beginning to generate a lot of interest: former kickboxer Lucia “The Dutch Destroyer” Rijker.

  Originally from the Netherlands, Rijker had achieved world renown not only with her perfect 37-0 kickboxing record—including twenty-five KO wins—but also for her fierce fighting style and competitive spirit. She won four kickboxing world championships during her career in the sport and competed widely throughout Europe and Japan.

  Rijker began martial arts as a six-year-old judo student. A gifted athlete, she excelled at softball, began studying karate at nine, and became the Netherland’s national junior fencing champion at thirteen. Following her brother to the gym where he was studying kickboxing, she took a class and never looked back, beginning to compete shortly thereafter.

  As Rijker’s notoriety in the kickboxing world widened, she grew tired of the constant grind. Feeling overly bound by the terms of her contract she decided to travel to Los Angeles in late 1994 to possibly pursue an acting career and to otherwise retire from kickboxing. She managed to earn a living working in health clubs, eventually working at Bodies In Motion. Over time, she grew intrigued by the growth of women’s boxing and began training at the Ten Goose Boxing Club in 1995 with its owner, Joe Goosen—well-known in boxing circles for turning out great fighters.

  Even before the Martin-Gogarty fight, Don King’s entry into women’s boxing promotion (coupled with the legalization of women’s amateur boxing) pushed smaller promoters to add women’s bouts to their fight cards. The WIBF was also in full swing, ranking fighters and beginning to sanction women’s boxing titles. Matchmakers and promoters were on the lookout for possible talent and thus combed the gyms, club fight nights, and amateur matches.

  Lucia Rijker certainly had the talent and experience, having begun to box in local amateur shows. With the support of a great trainer, she was given the nod to fight her debut professional boxing bout on the regular Thursday night fight card at the Olympic Theater in L.A.—a good venue to begin a professional boxing career. Her first fight was also a mere five days after women’s boxing had been thrust into “prime time” by the Martin-Gogarty matchup.

  Rijker cut an impressive figure walking into the ring: five-feet, six-and-a-half-inches tall, her dark curly hair pulled back. Her unmarred features chiseled from a lifetime of sports and an athletic body with perfect musculature gave her the look of a true warrior. She also possessed boxing skills, ones that wowed the crowd as she made quick work of her opponent, Melinda Robinson, dropping her with a stunning knockout in the first round.

  The fact that Robinson was a seasoned professional with an official 3-3 record coming into the fight (she had fought Martin two months before, taking a loss on points after six rounds of boxing at Miami’s Jai Alai Fronton) also played in Rijker’s favor. As did Robinson’s comment after the fight that Martin’s hardest punch didn’t compare to Rijker’s lightest.

  Rijker’s next step, however, would prove to be the crucial one. Still working at Bodies In Motion, a gym client of hers, Sam Simon (who co-developed and produced the hit television show The Simpsons) was also a boxing enthusiast who worked out at L.A.’s Wild Card Gym, competed in amateur fights, and eventually took on a sideline job as a boxing manager. Simon introduced Rijker to the Wild Card’s owner, an ex-fighter named Freddie Roach. At thirty-four years of age, Roach—who’d had an explosive boxing career of his own under the tutelage of famed trainer Eddie Futch—was beginning to make a name for himself training fighters alongside the actors and stunt doubles he trained for the movies.

  At the time Sam Simon approached him, Freddie Roach was not interested in training women fighters. Those that he’d seen were wholly unimpressive to him, presumably including Christy Martin, but as a favor to Simon, he agreed to meet with Rijker. All it took, however, was one round of pad work in the ring to convince Roach that Rijker was not only a great boxer but also pound-for-pound better than most of the men in the gym possessing the kind of KO power that would be a promoter’s dream.

  A few years later he said, “She will impress you. I heard so much about her and thought she can fight for a girl. I got to realize that she can fight anybody.”[32]

  Rijker also liked Freddie Roach, and while her experiences with Joe Goosen had been great, she decided to switch over to the Wild Card Gym figuring there were things Roach could teach her that would expand abilities as a fighter in the ring. Roach also became invested in seeing Rijker not only grow as a fighter but become a leading figure in the women’s side of the game. He introduced her to Stan Hoffman who became her co-manager with Roach, and he also helped engineer meetings with Don King and Bob Arum to assist her getting signed up for big fights.

  Meeting with King first—who’d flown her and Roach to Las Vegas—Rijker did not like the terms he offered and turned him down. She and Roach next met with Bob Arum, telling a reporter a year later, “Bob shook my hand, gave me a look, then started talking ab
out women’s boxing, how he didn’t like it, blah, blah, blah.”[33]

  Rijker insisted that he view her highlight tape and, when he refused, said they wouldn’t leave until he watched it. Arum obliged and decided that she was “the one.” Having signed a promotional agreement with Arum, there were still a few months before Rijker could climb back into the ring for her first fight under the new Arum management.

  During the wait for her first Top Rank fight Rijker was not alone. Filmmaker Katya Bankowsky and her crew had earlier begun filming a documentary on the topic of women’s boxing entitled Shadow Boxers. Rijker gave the okay to be a subject of the documentary and was filmed sporadically as she trained in the gym and behind the scenes at several of her fights in the winter and spring of 1997.

  Her first fight for Top Rank was on December 6, 1996, in Reno, Nevada, at the Lawlor Events Center—almost nine months after her triumph over Robinson. She was slated to fight against Kelly Jacobs on the undercard of fellow Wild Card Gym fighter James Toney’s World Boxing Union (WBO) light heavyweight title defense against Montell Griffen.

  With the Toney-Griffen championship contest scheduled to be aired on HBO, the pressure was on Rijker to perform well and to impress not only the fight crowd but also the sportswriters and fight commentators who sat at ringside. From the opening bell, Rijker clearly outclassed Kelly Jacobs (with a 3-2 win-loss record), defeating Jacobs by TKO at 1:43 into the first round. In the process, Rijker wowed both the boxing crowd and the group sitting in judgment on press row. What they saw was a woman who was so obviously skilled it was hard to diminish her by calling her “merely” a “woman” boxer.

  Within two weeks, Rijker was back in the Netherlands fighting there for the first time in three years and working out at Gleason’s Gym in Rotterdam to prepare for the bout. (She also became the first licensed female boxer in her native country in the process.) Fighting a Hungarian boxer named Zsuzsanna Szuknai, Rijker dispatched her opponent in the first round by TKO after Szuknai’s corner threw in the towel. Rijker remained in the Netherlands as she prepared for her next bout—a WIBF European Light Welterweight title fight against another Dutch fighter named Irma Verhoef (also an early MMA fighter). Impressive again with her mixture of strong skills, strength, and growing ring savvy, Rijker won the title by TKO after the fight was stopped in the fourth round.