W Is For Women's Boxing

I'm a big fan of women's boxing. 

As a sport it is about as old as men's boxing but it has been derided, ridiculed, marginalised, mocked and banned in most countries for far too long. The boom in the sport as we know it today really began in the 1990s in the USA as women were becoming more prominent in other sports such as baseball and basketball. It's quite difficult to find any serious reportage of women's boxing prior to this because it just wasn't taken seriously and was often a sideshow at traveling circuses or conducted in less than salubrious venues.

Even the likes of Barbara Buttrick a Southpaw English boxer seen here in 1948 wasn't taken too seriously despite being the undisputed Flyweight and Bantamweight between 1950 to 1960, and only after moving to the States did she begin to find any real sense of credibility as a boxer.

Amazingly Barbara's story came to a satisfactory conclusion when she established the Women's International Boxing Federation (WIBF) in 1989, also becoming its first president. Today the WIBF (not to be confused with the IBF) is a major sanctioning body of women's boxing.

Even today there is an air of controversy around women's boxing amongst the less enlightened, so I'm going to move on and celebrate contemporary women's boxing for the joy that it is by looking at two female boxers that I like.

I mentioned in my B post that my favourite female boxer is Nicola The Lioness Adams. Adams was a British flyweight boxer fighting between 2017 & 2019. Nicola holds two Olympic gold medals (London 2012 & Rio 2016) as well as having an undefeated record in the ring. In 2019 Adams held the WBO female flyweight title. 

Nicola's brief but impressive professional fight record stands at 6 fights with 5 wins, 0 losses, 1 draw and 3 wins by KO. Sadly she retired from boxing in November '19 after sustaining a serious eye injury.

Next up is Hannah Rankin, The Classical Warrior,  a Scottish boxer from Glasgow and is another British boxer worth watching. She was on the undercard  at Coach Cris's World Boxing Federation (WBF) International super welterweight title fight here in Cape Town, South Africa. In that fight she beat Kholosa Ndobayini in an eight-round welterweight bout by unanimous points decision and she was a joy to watch.  Hannah is rated in the top 5 of British boxers having previously held the IBO Super Welterweight Title to become Scotland's first female world champion. Sadly Hannah lost the belt in November 2019. 

Hannah is know as The Classical Warrior because she's also a professional musician playing the bassoon, she also holds a Masters degree from the Royal Academy of Music in London. 

As far as I'm concerned women's boxing is a totally valid and legitimate sport and is just as breathtaking and entertaining to watch as the men's game. Women train no less than men do and fight just as hard, but sadly there are still those that ridicule it and objectify those that do box.

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This post is part of a series in the Blogging From A To Z Challenge, April 2022.