Mary Jo Sanders and the Holly Holm Conundrum Part Three: Heartbreak in Auburn Hills

 

Eager to relitigate the matter, Mary Jo Sanders wanted to personally put the lessons Holly Holm felt she took away from their first bout to the test. Sooner than later. And, ideally, not in Albuquerque.

A return engagement with Sanders was neither contractually mandated nor foremost on Holly’s mind, however. “Everybody kept asking, ‘When’s the fight with Mary Jo?’ This is it,” Holm retorted. “It’s over and I won, and it’s a big thing for me.”

A big thing indeed, as a post-fight overture had allegedly been made to Holly’s promoter Lenny Fresquez on behalf of Laila Ali. Remember, it was Mary Jo who had originally been considered as a likely candidate to lure Laila back into the ring for the first time since Muhammad’s daughter needed less than one minute to dispatch Gwendolyn O’Neil sixteen months prior to the Holm/Sanders showdown.

Sanders was within a reasonable weight range to Ali, who was fighting at super-middleweight, but evidently a less attractive option from a marketing standpoint now that she had lost to Holm. Moving up the scales to 168 pounds, or even meeting Laila somewhere in the middle at a catchweight was simply out of the question for Holly and, anyway, Ali was seven months pregnant at the time which made it all a moot point. Laila opted to focus on starting a family and never fought again.

Which made a Holm vs. Sanders rematch the logical conclusion, right? Not so fast. Fresquez was seriously entertaining the proposal of a unification fight for Holm with undefeated super-welterweight belt holder Giselle Salandy, who possessed the WBC, WBA, GBU, IWBF, WIBA, and WIBF straps. Failing that, backup plans were also under consideration that included Myriam Lamare and Anne Sophie Mathis. This was also more or less the case throughout the contentious negotiations leading up to the first Holm/Sanders bout when Fresquez made the ridiculous claim that Mary Jo was “afraid of Holly.”

Holm would eventually scrap with both Lamare and Mathis, eking out a narrow points win over Myriam in February 2009 and getting viciously knocked out by Mathis at the Route 66 Casino on her own turf in Albuquerque on December 2, 2011 before gaining revenge by way of unanimous decision at the same location six months later. She never did get to test herself against the 21-year-old Salandy, who fought for the last time the day after Christmas in 2008, decisioning Yahaira Hernandez in front of a home crowd in Trinidad and Tobago and was tragically killed in an automobile accident nine days later.

One month removed from their first fight, it was confirmed that a tentative agreement had been reached between the camps of Holm and Mary Jo for a rematch on October 17, Holly’s 27th birthday, in Detroit. Despite the fact that they were conceding the home advantage to Sanders this time around, Holly’s trainer and manager Mike Winkeljohn pointed out that the formal contract had yet to be returned to them with Sanders’ signature. “So, we’ll see what happens,” he cautioned. During the negotiations, Holm attended the ESPY awards ceremony in Los Angeles where she was nominated as best fighter but lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr.

The following month, on August 20, the rematch was officially confirmed with a slight change in venue. Rather than Detroit’s Cobo Hall or even the Pontiac Silverdome, the fight would now occur at The Palace of Auburn Hills, which was still situated well within Mary Jo’s comfort zone. Sanders had earned the reputation of being not merely a great fighter by the Metro Detroit faithful but a goodwill ambassador for her home state which, at the time, was more important than ever when taking into consideration how particularly devastated its citizens had been by the recent economic crisis.

Local business owner Chris LaBelle, who still operates LaBelle Electric out of Mt. Clemens, was one of four major sponsors who contributed toward the estimated $400,000 it took to host the rematch in Michigan, a morale boost to the entire state as much as it was for Sanders. He was happy to elaborate on the mutually beneficial relationship he had developed with Sanders dating back to her pro debut. “The uniqueness of Mary Jo and women’s boxing has created a lot of interest. Many of my clients have gotten hooked on her and won’t miss a fight. My sponsorship of Mary Jo has resulted in name recognition—made us more visible to the public—and provides an event to invite my customers and clients to,” he stated. “We get a lot of bang for our buck on our investment. We get an opportunity to sponsor a local athlete who is just an incredible person. It makes you feel good to see someone like her succeed. It has strengthened us as a company and individuals in some pretty hard times.”

A Dodge distributor who oversaw two dealerships, Al Deeby was another of Sanders’ proud financial backers. “The return on investment is tough to measure, but I know this: we’re involved with a winning team—the loyalty, the pride, we just can’t lose out,” raved Deeby, whose six-year-old daughter was far less interested in playing princess than she was pretending to be Mary Jo Sanders, walking around their house wearing the boxing gloves and little robe given to her by her hero. “Mary Jo has done herself, the city, and her fans proud. Her appeal stretches across Detroit.”

Cliff Lunney planned on going to the fight in the company of fifteen of his 600 employees from CWL Investments out of Ferndale which owned the most substantial franchise in the Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwich chain. “We’re looking for Mary Jo to knock out Holm. We’re excited about the rematch,” Lunney exclaimed. “When Mary Jo does well, it reflects on the city. I want my store and my employees to share in that.”

Ric-Man Construction in Sterling Heights was responsible for the welfare of as many as 200 employees and was owned and operated by Steve Mancini, a lapsed boxing fan who had previously followed the career of the ‘Motor City Cobra’ Thomas Hearns. “We love her to death. My wife and I will be at The Palace to watch her win that fight,” said Mancini about Sanders, to whom he gave full credit for reigniting his passion for the sport. He had been enthusiastically sponsoring Mary Jo for the past three years. “She brings so much energy to her bouts. It’s the same energy that might just get this city back on its feet and turn this economy around,” he concluded hopefully.

As was the case with the first time around, the referee and judges would all be from neutral locations to help alleviate potential concerns over hometown partiality. Well-respected hall of famer Steve Smoger drew officiating duties for the rematch, replacing Kenny Bayless whose overly-cautious approach dictated the less than fan-friendly stop-and-go pace in Albuquerque.

Never one to openly criticize or speculate, Sanders remained characteristically quiet through the fallout from the first bout as well as the haggling over every minute detail leading up to the second. This, of course, was a different story from her voluble manager and trainer Jimmy Mallo, who had offered wildly differing evaluations of the first scrap.

“The fight should have been judged a draw. Holly did a very fine job, but Mary Jo threw the cleaner, crisper punches,” Mallo opined in the days before the rematch. “Mary Jo had a night off, and Holly got a gift.” This stands in stark contrast to earlier comments in which he stated that Sanders hadn’t looked like her normal self in that contest, jokingly suggesting that perhaps it had been a twin sister he didn’t know she had who stepped into the ring in her place. “The whole of Team Sanders was shocked. Mary Jo was shocked,” admitted Mallo. “When you’re in someone’s backyard, you can’t let them make early deposits. We just didn’t stick to our game plan.”

“This is going to be bigger than our fight in Albuquerque,” acknowledged Holly Holm. “Mary Jo will be a different person. She’ll fight with heart and aggression. She’ll get after me. I expect to hear a lot of boos, but I’ll use that as motivation.” Holm watched their first bout on a portable DVD player during the flight from New Mexico to Michigan while jammed into the middle seat between two other passengers in the back row of the plane. Though this was her third viewing, Holly had to excuse herself and get up to walk off the jitters coursing through her body, confessing that it was too “nerve-racking” to get through the entire fight in one sitting.

“I know Mary Jo is feeling the pressure too. As boxers, we are fully exposed when we climb into the ring,” said Holm. “It’s the unknown you face every fight. You gain a lot of respect for your opponent, and it’s mutual.”

Not until the day of the weigh-in did Sanders break her silence and was, unsurprisingly, in nearly complete agreement with Holm’s sentiments. “I’ve got a lot of respect for Holly. Her work ethic is great; she works very hard,” said Mary Jo. “If anything, she’s the one under pressure here. Detroit isn’t the kind of place you hit and run. They’ll boo you out of town if you do.”

Asked to assess her performance in the first fight, Sanders simply mentioned having been “so, so far off who I am, what I do” and more or less left it at that. “I don’t talk backwards. I don’t think backwards,” Mary Jo stated defiantly. “I’ve left Albuquerque in the past. I rely on my tools—my fists—and I’ve been taught never to run away.”

As content as Sanders and Holm were to carry on speaking of one another in congenial platitudes, their trainers were just as happy to continue to jaw with one another like kids trading verbal  barbs in a schoolyard. “People get disgruntled—they complain they can’t hit Holly, that she runs away. But they always walk away with black eyes themselves,” said Mike Winkeljohn. “Ok, she moves, but she hits hard. How many famous boxers have done just that? Why that’s a bad thing for Holly to do, I don’t know.”

Jimmy Mallo fired back by insisting, “She didn’t hurt Mary Jo. She didn’t beat Mary Jo.” About any adjustments which were implemented during training for the rematch, Mallo had this to say: “We tweaked a few things, and we saw a lot of vulnerabilities in Holly that we’re gonna capitalize on this time.”

Fight fans not attending in person would have to wait to see the return bout on a tape-delayed FSN broadcast, largely owing to the disappointingly lackluster pay-per-view buy rate for the first fight as reported by Holm’s promoter Lenny Fresquez. Banking on 10,000 purchases at $24.95 a pop, Fresquez was optimistically hoping for 15,000 which was more than twice what the number of national buys turned out to be—7,000 to be exact. He believed this had to do with the fact that the show had been an all-female card, concluding that he would be disinclined to pursue a similar venture in the future if there was no money to be made.

This bout was sanctioned by the IBA (International Boxing Association) which was putting its vacant super-welterweight world title up for grabs. It had first been worn around the waist of Ann Wolfe courtesy of a TKO win over Gina Nicholas back in 2001, and the belt had been unclaimed ever since she vacated it soon after. Sanders was the first to make her ring walk, bouncing on the balls of her feet and shadowboxing in her corner while Holm came barreling past the camera crew and proceded to pace and then jog from one side of the ring to the other during the pre-fight formalities.

Anyone who questions Holly’s intensity needs only to behold her stoic, almost grim countenance as she stares daggers at Mary Jo Sanders before Steve Smoger instructs, and finally commands, an apparently reluctant Holm to touch gloves with her opponent. Say what you will, Holm has always taken the hurt business very seriously.

Mary Jo didn’t need to concern herself with chasing Holm around the ring in the first round. After a tentative thirty-second period of reacquaintance, Holly was the first to instigate an encounter and, despite some of her trademark kinetic energy which was certainly to be expected, she was extraordinarily quarrelsome. Letting her hands go all the while, Holm bullied Sanders across the ring and into a corner with twenty seconds left of the opening frame. Mary Jo promptly punched her way out, but it was clear from the get-go that Holly came to Auburn Hills to prove that she was a fighter, not a runner.

One takeaway from their first skirmish was obviously that Sanders learned to throw leather while Holm was in the process of closing the distance. Even while being bumrushed into the turnbuckle in the first round, Mary Jo connected with an uppercut which was an arrow she would pull from her quiver on a consistent basis throughout the evening. As Holly tended to rush forth with her head down, the implementation of these adjustments would prove very effective.

If only Jimmy Mallo had worked with Sanders to step to the side when Holly would streak toward her rather than retreat in a straight line, opportunities would have presented themselves which may have precipitated a more advantageous outcome. Her right being her dominant hand, it would have served Mary Jo well to pivot to her left in such circumstances, forcing Holm to step to her own left and, theoretically, into a Sanders right hook she couldn’t see coming. Mary Jo had come up with some much-needed responses to questions left unanswered six months prior, but the enigmatic Holm would be bested only if all of the pieces were present and fit together perfectly. This trick may have been the gamechanger that Sanders and Mallo overlooked and left behind in the metaphorical puzzle box.

Sanders hit the reset button between rounds and emerged from her corner with three consecutive jabs followed by a straight right to establish control over the next two-minute stanza. In a repeat of what transpired in round one, Holm railroaded Mary Jo into the same corner but couldn’t take advantage of the situation as Sanders blasted her way out.

Unlike Kenny Bayless, Steve Smoger was more than willing to let the two combatants engage one another from close quarters, something which occasionally favored an aggressively driven Holm such as when she scored with a three-punch combination with her back to the ropes in the last thirty seconds of round two, though Mary Jo got the better of the very next exchange while also fighting off the ring strands.

Holly’s attacks were still unorthodox, but less frenetic than in the first fight when it often seemed as if she was devising her strategy even as it unfolded. Perhaps, though, that was part of Holm’s genius—making it appear as though not having a plan was her plan. Maybe her apparent unpredictability had actually been pre-determined and repeatedly practiced. With Holly, it was hard to tell, keeping you on your toes and second-guessing everything.

Nevertheless, Sanders had not only seen this movie before but been a co-star in the original six months ago. Privy to the intimate knowledge of how the plot was likely to play out, as well as the twists and turns it would take along the way, Mary Jo was no longer mystified by the unknown and the outcome of this action-packed sequel was in no way inevitable. By the middle rounds, Sanders was seizing the momentum and making it work for her.

Both getting hit more frequently and missing her mark more often, it was Holm who became visibly flustered, looking set adrift and lost at sea heading into the final three frames. But, make no mistake, she would find her way back to shore and into the thick of the action which intensified over the final six minutes in a give-and-take struggle for supremacy.

Exhibiting remarkable stamina to complement their gutsy performances, Holly Holm and Mary Jo Sanders delivered on the promise of a thrilling fight that went largely unfulfilled six months before. Naturally, each woman believed she had outworked her adversary to an extent sufficient to have secured the victory.

“I felt like I controlled the center of the ring,” said Holm. “I felt I did enough to win the fight. I was the aggressor.” During her post-fight remarks, Mary Jo had to admit, “She’s not a runner anymore. She came to fight. I told her she should be proud of herself.”

Judge Paul Smith was in agreement with Holm’s self-evaluation, scoring the bout 97-93 in her favor. His verdict was overruled by Marty Denkin and Steve Weisfeld, both of whom arrived at tallies of 95-95, regrettably deadlocking the decision. Both women were disappointed but neither one bitter. “I think I won, but Holly is a great girl. We’ll do it again,” vowed Sanders.

Holm was immediately agreeable to a third fight as well, but the rubber match in what would have been a memorable trilogy was, unfortunately, not meant to be. Instead, Holm would go on to defeat Myriam Lamare the following January, as alluded to earlier, before closing out 2009 by stopping undefeated Duda Yankovich in the 4th round and easily outpointing Terri Blair in Las Vegas.

With a third scrap against Holly Holm seeming less likely and a mega-bout opposite Laila Ali no longer a viable option, Team Sanders entered into talks with undefeated phenom Giselle Salandy toward the end of 2008. “She was such a young woman and a champion. It was a tragic turn of events,” lamented Mary Jo concerning Salandy’s untimely death in January 2009. “I felt sick.”

Having adopted a “never say never” attitude toward another fight, Sanders kept plenty busy as a personal trainer. In early 2011, she had been mentioned as a potential opponent for Canadian former WIBA world lightweight champion Kara ‘KO’ Ro who was likewise looking to make a comeback. This never materialized, nor did the opportunity to coach Team USA’s women’s boxing squad which was preparing to make its historic debut at the 2012 London Olympics. Mary Jo had reached out to offer her services, but her calls were not returned. What a shame, as this would have allowed Sanders to impart her wisdom onto the likes of Mikaela Mayer, Marlen Esparza, Tiara Brown and, of course, fellow Michigan native Claressa Shields.

“I asked my father how he dealt with that when he retired from football, how he dealt with not playing anymore,” reflected Sanders in March 2010. “He told me he had dreams for years about it, and that when he’d wake up, he was sure he’d played a game—smelled the turf, felt the hits. It’s tough to retire or think about it.”

Once a fighter, always a fighter, Mary Jo was among the Class of 2018 honored by the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame and entered the ranks of IBHOF inductees this past June in Canastota, joining Holly Holm in both esteemed institutions.

 

Sources:

Mike Brundell. Sanders: Sponsors Are Big Fans Too (Detroit Free Press, October 14, 2008)

Mike Brundell. Holm Ready For Sanders Rematch (Detroit Free Press, October 16, 2008)

Mike Brundell. One Ferocious Fight Ended With a Draw (Detroit Free Press, October 19, 2008)

Mike Brundell. Ring Star Sanders Wants to Stay Active (Detroit Free Press, March 3, 2010)

Mike Brundell. Sanders vs. Ro: Great Fight for Silverdome? (Detroit Free Press (January 30, 2011)

Rick Wright. Boxer Lovato a Hero in Her Hometown (Albuquerque Journal, October 1, 2007)

Rick Wright. Duke City Star Did Her Homework (Albuquerque Journal, June 15, 2008)

Rick Wright. Condit to Defend Crown (Albuquerque Journal, July 20, 2008)

Rick Wright. Holm—Sanders II Set for Oct. 17 (Albuquerque Journal, August 20, 2008)

Rick Wright. Holm in Hostile Territory (Albuquerque Journal, October 17, 2008)

Mary Jo Sanders/Holly Holm II (YouTube, uploaded February 10, 2009)

Mary Jo Sanders and the Holly Holm Conundrum Part Two: The Albuquerque Blues

 

“Did I bring too much emotion to the fight? Did I try too hard to knock her out? I even questioned if I’d pulled on the right socks,” mused Mary Jo Sanders when she allowed herself the time to properly reflect on her defeat at the hands of Holly Holm. “You think about every little thing. But you can’t let it drive you crazy.”

What undoubtedly did drive Sanders crazy was Holm’s herky-jerky maneuvers and catch-as-catch-can methodology. Just when you think you’ve done your due diligence and are ready for any variable that can be thrown your way, it is astonishing how quickly you can become unhinged by flesh and blood problems presented to you in the heat of battle that require immediate response and reaction and prove to be far more difficult to solve than you could have possibly anticipated. Holly Holm was the conundrum for which Mary Jo was seemingly at a loss to find a solution.

Looking to initiate a pre-emptive strike, Sanders vaulted out of her corner at the opening bell. Her plan was to cut off the ring and nullify Holly’s there-one-second-gone-the-next exit strategy. Easier said than done. Using lateral movement and awkward hop-steps, Holm had the uncanny ability to manifest an escape hatch where none was present the moment before and skip quickly away from incoming bombardments. After creating a safe distance, she might choose to spontaneously launch herself forward with her head down and fists flailing just as she first did to Sanders roughly thirty seconds into the fight and would continue to do so repeatedly.

Though the element of surprise was on her side in such instances, ambushes of this sort were largely ineffectual from an offensive standpoint due to the fact that the punches were being thrown while she was in motion and not from a set and planted position to generate maximum power. Some did land, however, and this would please judges who score on volume rather than accuracy or potency. To prevent against counterattacks, Holm would retreat just as hastily as she had surged ahead and, like the ocean tide, come rushing right back in again.

This made it incredibly difficult for Mary Jo to keep Holm confined and within easy striking distance like she had hoped. Instead, she spent the majority of the time pursuing the gazelle-like champion from pillar to post around the twenty-foot ring in an effort to trap her long enough so that she could get off more than one single power shot at a time. Again, easier said than done. But not for lack of trying.

Sanders attempted to work her way inside behind her left jab but would more often than not find herself in a clinch as soon as she was able to close the gap. Referee Kenny Bayless, as he was wont to do, continually insinuated himself into the action and made an aggravating habit of breaking Holm and Mary Jo apart with little provocation. Disinclined to permit fighting to occur at close quarters, Bayless presented the methodical and heavy-handed Sanders with yet another quandary while Holly, whose punch selection was predictably unpredictable, was given the advantage of conducting business at a frantic pace which was far more to her liking.

All of this is not meant to suggest that Holm was all flight and no fight. On the occasions that Sanders did manage to corner her, Holly would respond accordingly, punching her way out of these temporary predicaments and leaving Mary Jo with frustratingly little to show for the effort. Not until the waning moments of the fourth round was Mary Jo able to land anything of consequence, a straight right followed up by a left hook seconds later which forced Holm to backpedal away from further trouble. Sanders touched her with two glancing rights in the process before being tied up as time expired in the frame.

Mary Jo’s trainer Jimmy Mallo liked what he saw toward the end of the round and urged her to do more of the same as he applied Vaseline beneath her eyes during the rest period. Meanwhile, a bundle of inexhaustible nervous energy, Holm bounced up and down in her corner as if on a pogo stick like she did while awaiting the bell to signal the beginning of each and every round. It was Holly who came out swinging but Sanders who connected with the round’s first meaningful shot, backing Holm up with a right hook at the minute and a half mark.

Whether it was thrown straight down the pike or came in the form of a hook or uppercut, Mary Jo’s persistence in throwing the right hand was beginning to pay off more consistently. This may not have opened the door to prolonged momentum shifts, but things were looking much more promising for Sanders than they had to that point. Holm used her long jab to not only ward off her attacker but to tally points, occasionally popping Mary Jo with her mitt as she was encroaching upon Holly’s territory.

Holm’s game of cat and mouse carried on as the bout progressed. So too did Kenny Bayless’ penchant for separating the fighters at his fastidious discretion. These two variables certainly made initiating, much less sustaining, some sort of impactful offensive an irksome task for Sanders. Curiously, even in the clinches Mary Jo seemed to be willfully ignoring Holm’s midsection, targeting her head almost exclusively whereas Holly would take advantage of the chance to invest in body work when presented with it. This was a missed opportunity to take at least some of the wind out of Holm’s sails and potentially keep her more stationary in the later going.

Sanders had her best round thus far in the eighth, establishing herself as the clear aggressor by mauling Holly and shooting short uppercuts between her guard in the brief instances that the two were allowed to stand shoulder to shoulder. While Holm made the most of the ring’s entire circumference, it was no longer her exclusive domain. Mary Jo was noticeably gaining a little more ground with each elapsed stanza when it counted the most, down the home stretch. But was it too little, too late?

A slugfest broke out in the first twenty seconds of round nine until Holm catapulted forward to grasp Sanders in a clinch, her unwieldy momentum taking both combatants down to the canvas in a grappling maneuver which foreshadowed Holly’s future exploits in mixed martial arts. Mary Jo bore the brunt of the fall on her left shoulder despite tossing Holm aside in mid-descent to ensure that Holly didn’t land right on top of her.

Thankfully this did not result in an injury to either fighter, and the action picked up where it left off before the interruption with Sanders muscling her way to a slight advantage in a match which would ultimately favor the boxer with the more acute timing and precision.

Mary Jo threw and landed a beautiful straight right fresh off a clean break instigated by Bayless, necessitating another clutch-and-hold tactic from Holm just before the bell ending the penultimate round. Sensing either that she had Holm hurt or that the fight was too close to call and she needed to put the pedal to the metal, Sanders roared straight toward center ring where she let loose with a flurry. She undoubtedly took some to get some, namely a looping left hook from Holm in the last minute of the fight, but Mary Jo appeared to be finishing very strong.

With fourteen seconds left on the clock, Holly propelled herself upwards off the mat while spastically kicking her left leg out behind her in a truly bizarre display of graceless gymnastics. The look on Sanders’ face is priceless. Mary Jo tried to capitalize on this head-scratching moment by lobbing an improvisational left hook just as an off-balance Holm touched back down, but it came up short of the mark.

Holly wasn’t done with the weird theatricality just yet. She lunged forward moments later with a wild left hook, again crazily lifting her left leg in the direction of her backside at a 45-degree angle. A possible callback to her beginnings as a kickboxer as well as once more providing a glimpse into her UFC career still three years in the making, this maneuver is known in different disciplines as the “Superman Punch.” It just missed grazing Sanders’ chin and, with that final idiosyncratic flourish, the timekeeper’s bell tolled for the last time that evening.

Jimmy Mallo picked Mary Jo up and did a victory lap around the ring with her in his arms while Holly celebrated with Mike Winkeljohn, but the winner of the fight would be determined by the judges’ scorecards, not self-confidence or wishful thinking or best intentions. The verdict could conceivably have gone either way in a fight this difficult to appraise, so it’s hard to argue with the nod being given to Holly Holm and, truth be told, it was highly unlikely that Mary Jo Sanders was going to be the beneficiary of a fair and balanced decision in Albuquerque.

That said, the 98-92 tallies arrived at by both Joe Garcia and Jon Schorle were ponderous at best. Mauro Di Fiore only granted Sanders one additional round, scoring the bout 97-93. Nevertheless, Sanders gave Holm a congratulatory hug after the decision was rendered and her father Charlie stood and applauded in appreciation of the effort put forth by his little girl as well as the hometown champion who just beat her.

Having handed Sanders her first career loss, retained her title, and won the WBAN belt presented by Sue Fox, Holly did her trademark backflip at center ring before taking the microphone to tearfully acknowledge everyone who made the victory possible. “I’ve never dealt with anyone so professional,” she remarked about Mary Jo. “She’s a great person, a great fighter, a great champion, and I just want to give her all the thanks.”

As for her postmortem on Sanders’ performance, Holm said, “She’s not one of those fighters who throws real tight. She’d throw looping punches, so I just tried to counter her down the middle. I didn’t want her to get off and set her feet and throw all those combinations. And I noticed she wasn’t as good fighting on her heels.”

Holly would additionally reflect, “I’m going to learn a lot from this fight, because I still think I can do a lot better.”

 

Sources:

Mike Brundell. Sanders Hopes to Avenge Loss to Holm (Detroit Free Press, October 17, 2008)

Rick Wright. Holm Earns Lopsided Win (Albuquerque Journal, June 14, 2008)

Holly Holm/Mary Jo Sanders I (YouTube, uploaded November 27, 2009)

Mary Jo Sanders and the Holly Holm Conundrum Part One: More Than Just Their Fathers’ Daughters

“Some of the biggest fights will be outside the ring, but you know that from your life, and it’s tough. But you can do it,” Mary Jo Sanders encouraged Claressa Shields during a 2017 awards banquet sponsored by the Michigan Association of United States Amateur Boxing which was honoring the two-time Olympic gold medal winner from Flint.

This event provided the perfect opportunity for a momentous pairing of female boxing’s past and present. Shields was then only three fights into her professional career, and one month away from capturing her first two world titles on the same night by stopping previously undefeated WBC super-middleweight champion Nikki Adler, additionally claiming the vacant IBF belt.

Nine years removed from the ring as of that evening, Sanders was invited to be the keynote speaker as a former prizefighter whose renown in the sports world equaled, and arguably eclipsed, that of her famous father, legendary Detroit Lions tight end Charlie Sanders, who passed away in 2015.

Mary Jo inherited her dad’s natural gift for athleticism, winning a state championship as a member of Rochester High School’s girls basketball team while also excelling in track and field, gymnastics, and ballet. She dug ditches and poured cement on construction sites to help put herself through school at Oakland University and Baker College, the manual labor paying additional dividends as Sanders began to take up weightlifting.

After placing first in the heavyweight division of the 1998 Miss Natural Michigan bodybuilding championships, Mary Jo won three consecutive Detroit Tough Woman contests, as well as the 2000 open-weight world championship despite the fact that her opponent had a 90-pound advantage over her. Sanders had also begun kickboxing and soon after seriously turned her attention to the time-honored tradition of pugilism, taking home the 2002 Golden Gloves. With the Olympics still no more than a pipe dream for women boxers and little else left for Mary Jo to achieve at the amateur level, she consulted her trainer and manager Jimmy Mallo who urged her to go pro.

Just like after Charlie Sanders had caught a short-range pass from Bill Munson or Greg Landry, his daughter Mary Jo hit the ground running upon her entrance into the professional fight game in February 2003 and never took a backwards glance, steamrolling over anyone who got in her way. She floored the much more experienced but far less skilled Willicia Moorehead (2-11) twice in the first round of her paid debut before a home crowd at The Palace in Auburn Hills, forcing the referee to halt the bout.

The first six fights of Sanders’ rookie year all occurred within an equal amount of months, and she would extend her winning streak in very impressive fashion in early 2004 with successive victories over Layla McCarter and Chevelle Hallback, both being former and future world champions. Mary Jo collected her first piece of hardware by defeating Hallback for a secondary title in the form of the IBA Continental light-welterweight championship which she defended three months later with a ninth-round TKO of Lisa Holewyne, another former world titleholder who had fought, and is now married to, Christy Martin. Sanders and Holewyne would resume hostilities a year and a half later with Mary Jo pitching a flawless shutout.

Unlike Claressa Shields, who was fast-tracked to her first world title opportunity after only three fights, Sanders was made to wait until she had tallied sixteen unanswered wins on her ledger, beating the likes of Melissa Del Valle and Belinda Laracuente along the way. Headlining a July 30, 2005 show at Detroit’s world-famous Cobo Hall which featured what would be the penultimate fight in Thomas Hearns’ hall of fame career as the co-main event, as well as The Hitman’s son Ronald scoring a first-round knockout on the undercard, Mary Jo pounded out a unanimous decision over 1950s middleweight champion Bobo Olson’s granddaughter Eliza to capture the inaugural WBC super-lightweight world title.

Once she formally made her imprint on the landscape of women’s boxing, Sanders wasted little time establishing herself as a contemporary pound-for-pound great by becoming a four-division world champion in fewer than eighteen months. A southpaw fighting out of Trinidad and Tobago, Iva Weston would face off opposite Sanders for the vacant WIBA world welterweight title with Mary Jo winning on a third-round TKO.

Just four months later, back on top of the bill at The Palace in Auburn Hills, Sanders staked her claim to the vacant WIBA super-welterweight world championship previously held by Ann Wolfe courtesy of a clear-cut unanimous decision over then-unbeaten Tricia Turton. Appearing at The Palace for the second to last time on January 12, 2007, Mary Jo forced Gina Nicholas (11-5-2) to retire on her stool at the end of round two. Sanders improved to 23-0 and was awarded the newly-minted IBA world middleweight strap. Nicholas never fought again. Mary Jo made one successful defense of the IBA belt, defeating the always dangerous Valerie Mahfoud by across the board scores of 100-90 in the main event at Cobo Hall on March 30, 2007.

Because they both occupied the upper ranks of elite female competitors of the mid-2000s, the prospect of having Mary Jo Sanders and Holly Holm share a ring together had been a tantalizing one for quite some time. A tall, lanky, stick-and-move southpaw hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico, ‘The Preacher’s Daughter’ had racked up a stellar 21-1-2 record by the time she and Sanders did get together. The lone blemishes could be accounted for by a pair of stalemates, with Stephanie Jaramillo and Angelica Martinez, and a TKO loss to Rita Turrisi when Holm’s corner threw in the towel due to the severity of a cut beneath her eye.

Holly had subsequently gotten the better of notables like Christy Martin, Mia St. John, Jane Couch, Ann-Marie Saccurato, and Chevelle Hallback, winning world titles in three divisions, which included a brief reign as undisputed welterweight champion in 2007.

In March 2008, Holm inked her name on the dotted line for the long-awaited showdown with Mary Jo Sanders in which she would defend her IFBA super-welterweight belt on June 13. Titled ‘Finally,’ their pay-per-view championship fight would headline a quartet of women’s bouts hosted by the Isleta Casino & Resort. Located in Holly’s hometown of Albuquerque, Holm had been featured there on eleven prior occasions, including her pro debut and nine world title fights. In fact, Holly had only just trekked beyond the borders of New Mexico for the first time in her career that February to take on Belinda Laracuente in Temecula, California.

Sanders, by contrast, was no stranger to being the visiting fighter. She had embarked on eleven trips outside of Michigan to that point, even putting in an appearance on a 2003 card held at the Playboy Mansion. Being that it was Holly’s title they were vying for, the Albuquerque native would once more be the beneficiary of home advantage. “Dad loved to play on the road,” said a nonplussed Mary Jo. “He always told me, ‘So, you have to bring a bunch of friends with you to beat me? Not likely.’”

The bout between Holm and Mary Jo was supposed to have taken place in January but had been scrapped the previous October when the deadline to respond to the initial offer made to team Sanders by promoter Lenny Fresquez, which he claimed was “generous,” came and went. With the financial negotiations at a temporary standstill, Holm had turned her attention to Miriam Brakache and Belinda Laracuente while Sanders stayed busy by notching a fourth-round stoppage of Veronica Rucker in a non-title match.

“You have two beautiful girls with soft voices. But somewhere under all that, they’re animals,” Sanders said in reference to herself and Holly at the press conference in Detroit to formally announce their long-anticipated contract signing. “It’s always about what you did on the field or in the ring. Fans are going to get what they paid for and probably more at this one.”

Mary Jo demurred, however, when asked to make a prediction on what round the fight would end. “I made the mistake of predicting the round once, and my dad got into me,” she laughed, with her father Charlie seated nearby. “He came into my dressing room before the fight and reamed me for it. I’d said I’d knock her out in the third round, and I actually KO’d her in the first. Dad wasn’t happy, though. So no need to make a prediction. It’s just going to be a great fight.”

Jimmy Mallo, Sanders’ manager and trainer, had no problem voicing his definitive opinion on the outcome. “She’s stronger, better than she has ever been. It’s not going to the scorecards,” Mallo boasted. “We just hope Holly will bring her boxing gloves and not her dancing shoes.”

As for the soft-spoken Holm, she would rather her performance do the talking. “I don’t make predictions either,” she offered, deftly sidestepping the matter. “I go into training to fight all ten rounds. I’ll take the fight round by round.” Her tune changed not once throughout the publicity tour, which remained cordial between the two fighters. Their handlers, not so much. “I think we’re a lot alike in that we just want to get in the ring and fight. She’s really not a talker and I’m really not a talker,” Holly maintained at the Las Vegas presser. “I mean, I know she wants to knock me out, but every fighter wants to do that. We respect each other.”

After trading insults with the more combative Jimmy Mallo, in addition to agreeing to a not-so-friendly $3,000 wager between the two, Holm’s coach Mike Winkeljohn assessed the situation in a manner that was complimentary and critical toward Sanders at the same time. “This is an easier fight for Holly than some of her others, even though Mary Jo is by far the most talented fighter she’s fought,” he began. “Sanders isn’t going to run and cover and keep her hands up high (a probable allusion to the crafty Belinda Laracuente, with whom Holly had just tangled). She’s gonna throw a lot of punches, and that’s going to leave her chin open for what Holly has to offer.”

Holm had to admit that handing Mary Jo the first loss of her career would be a game-changing achievement. “You get known through that,” she said, “and I think that can catapult my career.”

It’s debatable whether one was necessarily looking past the other but, in any event, the gameplan was for Mary Jo Sanders to leverage a victory over Holly Holm into a lucrative mega-fight against Laila Ali in 2009. She, of course, took a tactful, pragmatic approach to this scenario whereas Jimmy Mallo was treating it as a foregone conclusion. “It’s going to happen,” he insisted. “But we are not going to get ahead of ourselves.”

To precondition herself to Albuquerque’s climate and high altitude, Mary Jo slowly increased her road work over the course of an especially tough training camp and swam laps for weeks. “We have to be prepared for anything. Hometown decision, the crowd all cheering for Holly,” said Mary Jo. “We wanted a sparring partner who could duplicate her moves but was much, much stronger.”

Mallo hired Damian Fuller, a 30-5-1 Detroit-based lightweight world title hopeful managed by Jackie Kallen, to mix it up with Mary Jo for 30 to 40 rounds per week. Standing five-foot-eight, Fuller was a lefty known for his fast hands and fancy footwork and could therefore be counted on to mimic Holly Holm both physically and stylistically.

“Mary Jo has unloaded her heavy metal on me,” exclaimed Fuller shortly after a sparring session in which he had his mouthpiece jarred loose by a Sanders right hook. “She’s a class act. She takes boxing as seriously as I do. She’s got a great right hand and good uppercut. She’s going to stop this lady.”

Three of Sanders’ and Holm’s six mutual opponents came forward to share their perspective on how things might play out, with each choosing Mary Jo to win. More or less. “I don’t think Holly would do so well against Sanders,” surmised Tricia Turton, who dropped unanimous decisions to both women. “When Holly ducks, Mary Jo will make her pay. Holly is not going to knock anybody out.” To be fair, Holm did have six knockouts to her credit thus far, just two fewer than Sanders in fact, but was certainly neither known nor feared for her displays of brute force, as attested to by Chevelle Hallback.

“Holm fought a great, smart fight. She doesn’t have any power, but she’s hard to catch,” said Hallback, referring to their 2007 scrap. Besides having fought both women, Hallback would be featured in the co-main event on the Holm/Sanders undercard. “Mary Jo’s got much more power. I think Mary Jo will take her if she doesn’t let the movement get to her.” Chevelle walked her endorsement of Sanders back a few steps by adding, “Either of them could win. I just wish them both the best.”

Pittsburgh native Shadina Pennybaker wasn’t quite as diplomatic about it. Despite lasting the four-round distance with Mary Jo Sanders on two occasions, separated by just a matter of weeks early in their careers in 2003, and having more recently been the victim of a technical knockout at the hands of Holly Holm, Pennybaker summed up her viewpoint very matter-of-factly. “Mary Jo’d whoop Holm’s ass,” she stated. “Easily.”

Naturally, Sanders accepted the forecasts with her usual grace and humility while Holm relished in the fact that she was being underestimated, giving her the chance to prove her doubters wrong. To Mike Winkeljohn, it was all just a case of “girls” who “couldn’t hit Holly” striking back the only way they knew how—verbally.

Mary Jo and her team arrived in Albuquerque six days early so that she could acclimatize and participate in fight week press junkets. Sanders was still working out so intensely in the days ahead that Jimmy Mallo had to caution her to dial it back so as not to leave it all in the gym or on the side of the road. Regardless of the elevation gain and 90 degree heat, Sanders was feeling good and promised that it would be Holm who would be suffering from oxygen deprivation come fight night. “I’m going to starve her of breathing room,” said Mary Jo during the final media event. “I’m going to take it to her. I’m going to cut off the ring and bang!”

Holly, on the other hand, opined, “I think a good boxer is someone who can utilize power while they’re moving and boxing. Not every punch is going to be your most powerful punch, and not every movement is made just to be slick. You’re going to be trying to set up things.”

As was his tradition, Charlie Sanders was present to not only sit ringside for his daughter’s bout, but attend the previous day’s weigh-in. “He’ll be here for the fight, and he’ll probably be nervous,” Mary Jo assured the reporters. “He’ll say something like, ‘Shouldn’t you have your mean face on?’ Dad worries more than anyone else.”

Both women stepped on the scale comfortably below the 154-pound super-welterweight limit. The challenger was 152 ¼ while Holm, the defending champion, came in at 150 ½ which was exactly eight pounds more than she weighed for her previous fight. Sanders is thought to have rehydrated to approximately 160 pounds while Holly remained right around 150 in order to maximize her greatest assets, speed, and agility.

Besides Holm’s IFBA super-welterweight title being at stake, Sue Fox was on hand to present a ceremonial belt honoring the winner as the best pound for pound female boxer recognized by WBAN.

During the pay-per-view broadcast’s ring introductions, an onscreen graphic misidentified Sanders as “Mary Jo Hallback,” an obvious and careless blunder mangling the names of Mary Jo Sanders and Chevelle Hallback. The action-packed co-feature had just seen Chevelle gain custody of the vacant IFBA world lightweight title by narrowly outpointing Jeannine Garside, putting even greater pressure on Sanders and Holm to deliver a fight to remember.

“I don’t really know what she’s going to do coming out. That’s why we prepared for everything,” Sanders had pondered in a pre-fight interview. “She could try to feel me out a little bit or she could come out with that straight left hand. The few tricks that she has, we’ve got it covered. The work is done, it’s just reaction and going out there and doing what I’ve been working for.”

This is all well and good except for the fact that when confronting a fighter who has a style as uniquely confounding as Holly Holm, pre-conceived strategies often have to get left by the wayside. Success ultimately hinges on the ability to adapt and improvise. No amount of rounds sparred or time spent studying and scrutinizing tapes can fully prepare a boxer for the challenge of adapting to, and improvising against, your opponent’s distinct brand of unorthodoxy or becoming a victim to your own exasperation with their quirks and eccentricities.

 

Sources:

Mike Brundell. Title Bout Promises Sparks (Detroit Free Press, March 13, 2008)

Mike Brundell. Sanders: Boxer Toughens Training Routine For Next Fight (Detroit Free Press, June 7, 2008)

Mike Brundell. Sanders Hyped For Title Fight (Detroit Free Press, June 13, 2008)

Marvin Goodwin. Shields Learns From Sanders’ Stellar Career (New Haven Register, July 27, 2017)

Rick Wright. Holm Drubs Hallback (Albuquerque Journal, May 24, 2007)

Rick Wright. Holm—Sanders Pay-Per-View Bout a No-Go (Albuquerque Journal, October 27, 2007)

Rick Wright. Holm Wins By a Unanimous Decision (Albuquerque Journal, February 2, 2008)

Rick Wright. Two Daughters to Duke it Out (Albuquerque Journal, March 22, 2008)

Rick Wright. Holm Unfazed By Forecasts (Albuquerque Journal, June 11, 2008)

Rick Wright. Holm, Sanders Vie Tonight (Albuquerque Journal, June 13, 2008)

Mary Jo Sanders Biography (WBAN—accessed at https://www.womenboxing.com/biog/mjsanders.htm)

boxrec.com

Holly Holm/Mary Jo Sanders I (uploaded November 27, 2009—accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=429vq4_z7lE) 

Seattle’s Zinda Foster and Sharon Allbery Punch Their Way Into History in 1975

Zinda Kaye Dinish-Foster was celebrated as “a true daughter of Seattle” following her untimely death at the age of 68 on November 26, 2022. A selfless and well-loved human being, Foster was remembered as a committed wife of 47 years to her husband Donald, a loving mother to her daughter-in-law Michele and son Jacobe, whose passing sadly preceded hers, a volunteer for the Montlake and Garfield Community Centers, a track and field coach, a learning coordinator and student advocate during a 25-year career at Lakeside School, a devout worshipper at the First AME church, an outspoken social activist, an accomplished seamstress who handcrafted her own prom and wedding dresses, and an artisan who made jewelry and quilts.

One accolade conspicuously absent from the outpouring of Zinda’s many affectionate testimonials was her contribution to the world of women’s boxing. There was no mention of the fact that in 1975 Foster made history by competing in the first sanctioned female prizefight to take place not just in her hometown of Seattle, or the state of Washington, but the entire Pacific Northwest region.         

Despite making it something of an unspoken personal mission to always put the concerns and the happiness of others well before her own, Zinda declared, “I can’t dismiss that my life matters, because I was born a Negro, elevated to Black and co-opted to be a hyphenated African American.” Welcomed into the world on February 22, 1954 by her parents David and Gynell Dinish at King County Hospital, Foster grew up in what she referred to as “the historically African American Central District” with nine siblings.

Foster remarked that she was “educated in underfunded public schools” but, nevertheless, managed to become a teenaged overachiever both academically and athletically. An honor roll student who co-edited the Garfield High School yearbook, Foster was a varsity cheerleader and three-time track and field champion as a member of CAYA (Crestview Area Youth Association), running the 50-yard dash in 5.9 seconds during a state meet to set a new girls’ record. She also enjoyed skating in her free time, whether on ice or at the roller rink.

Now twenty-one, Zinda was putting herself through college by working as an account administrator and model for the Bon Marche department store. She was also a newlywed, having just married former amateur boxer Donald Foster Jr., who had won the Tacoma Golden Gloves among other regional titles. Washington state being one of several to see women beginning to lobby athletic commissions for professional boxing licenses in the 1970s, with only Caroline Svendsen of Nevada just recently successful in her pursuit to that point, the unassuming Zinda Foster would end up as a primary beneficiary of the pressure being applied to local politicians by female residents of the Evergreen State who had to fight the powers that be for the right to fight one another. The matter reached all the way to the desk of the state’s attorney general Ernest Furia, who ruled in the women’s favor, stating that “they’re entitled to fight.”

If for no other reason than they found themselves legally backed into a corner they couldn’t muscle their way out of, the Washington State Athletic Commission approved the addition of a women’s bout, consisting of 3 one-minute rounds, to the October 21, 1975 card at the Seattle Center Arena which would be headlined by 1972 Olympic gold medalist Sugar Ray Seales, a native of Tacoma who was then 26-2-1 as a pro and defending his Pacific Northwest middleweight title against Renton’s ‘Iron’ Mike Lankester. “I talked to the attorney general’s office about this and I’m told we can’t stop this. So I’m not going to,” commission chairman Jimmy Rondeau conceded as if in helpless surrender. “But,” Rondeau felt compelled to point out, “we look upon this as an exhibition.”

Joe Williams, whose Global Productions was promoting the show, wasn’t thrilled either about the recent turn of events. He disclosed that there were “about 15 (women) who called us wanting to be on the card,” some of whom threatened to picket outside the arena on fight night if Williams failed to comply. “So we chose these two,” he relented.

“These two” that Williams referenced rather dismissively were Zinda Foster and Sharon Allbery, a 34-year-old widow and mother of three who worked as an advertising executive for Seattle radio station KUUU, coached the Westgate little league baseball team in Edmonds, and had been a bronc rider in the rodeo. “My father used to box as an amateur. I’m not really a women’s libber, but I believe in equality in sports,” said Allbery. “I’ve been involved in sports all my life. My dad was very athletic and I’ve tried some baseball, basketball, scuba diving, you name it.” Although she had taught her 13-year-old daughter self-defense techniques, Allbery confessed that “boxing is something I’ve never done, except with my two sons around the house.” Sharon said that her boys were initially “excited” about the idea of their mom being a boxer, but were nervous about the possibility of seeing her get hurt.    

“We fight a lot at home. I’ve boxed with him. I know how,” said Zinda Foster of sparring with her husband Don. “I feel good. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens. No, I’m not looking for a career in boxing. I’m sort of over the hill for that,” she admitted, even though she was only twenty-one. “But I may be able to open some doors for younger girls. I’ve always felt that women have just as much right in sports as men. If women have the capabilities, why not?”

With the more quiet and lowkey Foster taking everything in stride, Allbery seemed to be getting swept up in the fanfare. “The press conference Friday was quite remarkable. Everybody seemed to be all for it,” she offered. “We had no problem passing the exam. The commission just wanted to know if we could handle ourselves. They’re mainly concerned with basic boxing fundamentals.” The afternoon of the fight, a news crew followed Sharon to a local salon where she got her hair done for the occasion. Foster, meanwhile, was busy answering phones during her day shift at Bon Marche, which just so happened to be a designated sales outlet for fight tickets. Even if her employee discount applied, Zinda didn’t need to buy a ticket, of course. In just a few short hours, she would be punching the time clock at Bon Marche before heading to the Seattle Center Arena where she would be inside the ring punching Sharon Allbery.

Angelo Dundee, the legendary trainer of Muhammad Ali, Carmen Basilio, and Sugar Ramos to name a few, was in town to work the corner of Mike Lankester for his main event title fight against Sugar Ray Seales and had taken the time to offer Allbery some pointers. “He seems to be very serious about it. Right away I could see why he’s such a respected trainer,” Sharon said. “He’s very easy to understand and work with. Basically, he’s emphasized that I should come up with a good solid defense.” Sound advice, if only she had followed it.    

Weighing in at 133 pounds and wearing a sleeveless t-shirt tucked into a blue wrestling singlet, Allbery was fashionably late making her appearance to step between the ropes, causing the ring announcer to joke, “Isn’t that just like a woman?” Dressed in simple green running shorts and a white tank top, Foster was announced at 131 pounds. Both women sported knee-length tube socks fashionable at the time. Being made to wait through the prolonged pre-fight formalities notwithstanding, Foster wasted little time getting down to business, pumping her left jab in Allbery’s face and enjoying repeated success with right hand follow-ups, confirming that she indeed knew what she was doing.

Meanwhile, it didn’t take long for Allbery to abandon what she had been instructed to do by Angelo Dundee now that push came to shove, instead spending the majority of the fight’s three minutes in a bewildered survival mode, backpedaling away from Foster and throwing patty cake-type punches with both hands. The best shot of the fight was a right cross landed by Zinda over Allbery’s two outstretched and dormant gloves in the second round, sending Sharon reeling back into the ropes where she pawed at her bleeding nose. Referee Jack Ableman jumped between the combatants to momentarily stop the onslaught but got a little too close for comfort once action resumed. “I nearly got clipped,” Ableman laughed afterwards.

In a show of diplomatic goodwill, the bout was declared a draw to the dismay of the 4,641 fans who booed the decision, or non-decision as it were. “When you have two ladies with that much sincerity, what can you say?” commented Ableman. Foster and Allbery were both paid $350, “the minimum appearance fee for this sort of bout” according to one of the promoters.

“I’m going to retire. Go back to singing. It’s safer,” said Sharon Allbery between gulps of air while wiping blood from her nose with one hand and holding a bouquet of red roses presented to her by a ringside admirer with the other. “It was lots of work. More than I like,” she acknowledged. “She hit me once—hard. It made me see stars. It really did. I must have hit her hard at least once because I’ve a big bruise here on my right hand.”

Athletic commission chairman Jimmy Rondeau, who made no bones about the fact that he had given the greenlight to the women’s bout only under protest to begin with, didn’t hold back when asked for his post-fight reflections. “It made me a little sick,” he said melodramatically. “We were sort of forced into it by a recent court ruling, but I think I might let them sue me before we do it again.”

Ringside physician Alex Grinstein shared Rondeau’s dim view of the situation. “Sharon’s nose was bruised and banged up a bit. It was the silliest thing I’ve seen in the 40 years I’ve been involved in sports,” the doctor ventured. “There’s no sense to it. It’s repulsive.”

The contempt wasn’t strictly limited to the men in attendance. “A woman’s place is not in the ring,” rued one female boxing fan who made it abundantly clear she was just there to see the main event. “We aren’t made to be fighters.”    

Although Zinda Foster enjoyed the experience, she remained doubtful that there was a future in boxing for her. “I don’t know whether I’ll do it again,” she pondered. “I don’t think my husband wants me to be away from home that much.”       

Continuing her studies at Whitman College and Western Washington State University, Foster would eventually earn her baccalaureate at the University of Washington and a master’s degree from Seattle University. The year after her foray into boxing, Zinda tried her hand at acting and landed a lead role in a Black Arts West production of the Langston Hughes gospel play Tambourines to Glory. Foster found her calling as an educator and community leader who truly made a difference and touched many lives, whether it was by surprising students and colleagues with their favorite snacks after a long day or coordinating voter registration efforts that extended as far as Texas, Georgia, and Ohio. The way she saw it, the smallest gesture could reasonably be just as impactful as the grandest.

“She was the type of person who saw a need and filled it,” said her niece, Latasia Lanier. Even if it was for one fleeting moment in the life of a young woman in her early twenties who was destined to achieve many remarkable things for which she would be respectfully memorialized, Zinda Foster helped fill a need in women’s boxing that kept the wheels of progress turning.

“Statues will probably never be erected in honor of Zinda Foster and Sharon Allbery,” wrote Tacoma News Tribune sports editor Earl Luebker in 1975. “But they are pioneer women.”

 

Sources:

Stan Farber. Dundee Sees Seales Date as Crucial (Tacoma News Tribune, October 18, 1975)

Will Nessly. Women to Step Into Ring (Everett Daily Herald, October 18, 1975)

Stan Farber. Seales, Mike Tangle Tonight (Tacoma News Tribune, October 21, 1975)

Paul Miller. When Sharon Meets Zenda, Blows Will Be Struck For Women’s Lib (Everett Daily Herald, October 21, 1975)

Steve Kelley. Female Fighter Late, Then Loses (The Olympian, October 22, 1975)

Two Women Meet In Seattle Ring, Fight to Draw (Chico Enterprise-Record, October 22, 1975)

Will Nessly. She’s Hanging Up the Gloves (Everett Daily Herald, October 22, 1975)

Earl Luebker. Zinda, Sharon Pioneer Field as Ringwomen (Tacoma News Tribune, October 22, 1975)

Women Boxing—1975 (Footage World, uploaded to YouTube October 28, 2009)

Zinda Foster—2020 Artist Profiles, Winners: Black Lives Matter Artist Grant (Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU, 2020)

Obituary: Zinda Kaye Dinish-Foster (The Seattle Medium, December 21, 2022)

Samara N. What a Spirit: Celebrating Ms. Zinda Foster (Lakeside School Tatler, January 10, 2023) 

How the Unlikely Duo of Gladys Smith and Toni Tucker Achieved a First for Women’s Boxing in New York

The first known women’s boxing match that took place in the United States occurred at Harry Hill’s Theater in New York on March 16, 1876 when Nell Saunders engaged Rose Harland in a sparring competition officiated by Hill himself, who rewarded Saunders with a narrow decision and a silver  butter dish. Twelve years later, Hattie Leslie and Alice Leary participated in an illegal prizefight in a barn on Navy Island, located off Buffalo’s Niagara River, resulting in the arrests of both combatants as well as their seconds and financial backers. ‘Countess’ Jeanne LaMar had boxed exhibitions in New York and petitioned the state athletic commission for a professional license in 1922 but was denied, though she would obtain one from New Jersey the year after. African American trailblazers Emma Maitland and Aurelia Wheeldin brought their ‘Tea For Two’ stage act, during which they boxed one another for three rounds, to cabarets, ballrooms, and vaudeville theaters not only all around Manhattan but across the globe throughout the 1920s and 30s.

After four years of going toe to toe with the New York State Athletic Commission in grueling legal battles, Lady Tyger Trimiar, Jackie Tonawanda and Cathy Davis were simultaneously granted their professional boxing licenses on September 19, 1978. It would take another ten months for the first officially sanctioned women’s boxing match in New York state history to be contested and, curious as it might seem, none of the three female pugilists who fought so hard for so long to make it happen would be involved.

Lady Tyger had fought her friend and Job Corps coworker ‘Killer’ Diane Corum in an amateur bout at the Audubon Ballroom on May 1, 1974 and, five months later, sparred both future middleweight world champion Vito Antuofermo and Junior Olympic lightweight champion Miles Ruane during an exhibition in Little Italy but would never once box in her home state as a professional. Neither would Jackie Tonawanda, the self-proclaimed ‘Female Ali,’ who became the first women’s boxer to compete in Madison Square Garden on June 7, 1975, albeit in a mixed gender exhibition against kickboxer Larry Rodania. Among the triumvirate of original licensees, only Cathy ‘Cat’ Davis would fight in New York and not until April 11, 1981 when she knocked out Lavonne Ludian at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in upstate Poughkeepsie.

In Jackie Tonawanda’s only verifiable pro bout, she was beaten by Valerie Diane Clark, who fought as ‘Dynamite’ Diane, winner by six-round split decision over ‘the Female Ali’ to capture the WWBA light-heavyweight title and a $300 purse in Louisville, Kentucky on February 16, 1979. Two months later, Clark was scheduled to participate in New York’s inaugural women’s professional boxing match opposite Marge Golden at the War Memorial in Syracuse. Promoter Tony Graziano received the begrudging seal of approval from the New York State Boxing Commission to add the women’s bout to the April 14 card sponsored by the Canastota Boxing Club.

“Why would a woman want to get mixed up in this business?” grouched regional athletic commissioner Tom Rees. “The State Supreme Court told us we have to do this. I don’t really want to get into what I feel about it all. But I think you know,” Rees intimated to Bob Snyder of the Syracuse Herald-Journal. “We’ve got to make the best of a bad situation.”  

It was a situation which was obviously also disagreeable to Carmen Basilio. “I’m against it,” stated the Canastota born and bred two-division world champion, most famous for his pair of fifteen-round wars with Sugar Ray Robinson where they traded the middleweight title back and forth. “Everything’s equal rights nowadays. So why fight it? You’d just end up in the courts or in jail. But would you want to marry some woman who’s been punched in the head too many times?”

Twenty-six-year-old Diane Clark was born in Washington DC but relocated with her family to New York in her pre-teens, graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School and going on to study nursing at John Jay College. Her cousin was an amateur boxer and Clark would spar with him at home. It was with his encouragement that, after a year spent working as a nurse’s aide, she began seeking out a gym where she could train. “The first five I called said they wouldn’t, that they don’t train women,” said Diane, who wound up at the more welcoming confines of Gleason’s Gym, located then on 34^th Street, where she was put through her paces three hours a day, five times a week.

When the trainer who had originally agreed to work with Clark suddenly passed away, she was taken under the wing of Lee Black, a middleweight journeyman who boxed in the mid to late 40s and twice fought Jake LaMotta’s manager and little brother Joey. “Women are very vicious,” insisted Black. “Once in the ring, they may be a better show than the men.” Starting off at welterweight and gradually working her way up to light-heavy, Diane had been competing professionally for three years, mostly in Canada where it was easier to get fights. She compiled an 8-0-1 record along the way, up to and including her recent win over Jackie Tonawanda when she had stepped in as a last-minute replacement for Lillian ‘Wonder Woman’ Wells.

“I feel like we’re special. Before my first fight, I was scared, nervous. I didn’t know how people would take me,” confessed ‘Dynamite’ Diane. “But after, they asked for my autograph. Now they tell me to stay with it. I want to make this grow. If I was embarrassed, there’d be no sense going on.” Clark was hopeful but realistic about her future prospects as a prizefighter. “The commissioner said women may fight until the age of forty,” she said. “With me, if boxing doesn’t go international, maybe I’ll fight to thirty. Then go back to school.”        

All of the commotion surrounding the April 14 Diane Clark/Marge Golden matchup became an anticlimactically moot point when Golden’s pre-fight gynecological exam turned up an unspecified irregularity. With no time to scare up a substitute, Clark was left on the outside of the Syracuse War Memorial looking in. Nancy Sciacca, New York’s only female fight promoter at the time, seized the history-making opportunity and signed middleweights Gladys ‘Bam’ Smith and Toni ‘Leatherneck’ Tucker to square off against one another at the 369^th Regiment Armory in Harlem on July 16.

As her nickname suggests, the 24-year-old Tucker was a three-year veteran of the Marine Corps where she learned to box mostly by sparring with men. She enjoyed her overnight shift patrolling the IND Eighth Avenue subway line from 8pm til 2am as one of over 100 members of Curtis Sliwa’s crimefighting outfit the Magnificent 13, the predecessor to his Guardian Angels, often teaching Kungfu to her comrades.

“Boxing has more contact. Kungfu is more self-defense. You very rarely get to use it,” Tucker reasoned. “The only time I used it was on 42^nd Street. The men over there, they bother young ladies. I was attacked by a man. He wanted to take me to a motel. He kept pulling my arm and wouldn’t let go. So I took his hand and I swung his arm around and pulled it tight, so that if I pulled any tighter his elbow would break. Then he left me alone. He knew I meant business.” Curtis Sliwa knew it too after Toni got a little carried away when the director of the ABC YOU program wanted to see the two spar for the cameras while filming a segment on the Magnificent 13. “I knocked him down and there was blood,” Tucker recounted. “The director yelled, ‘Cut! Cut!’” Rather than get upset, Sliwa was impressed and promised Toni he would be attending her fight.   

A 21-year-old mother of two, Gladys Smith had belonged to a gang in her hometown of Newark, New Jersey, meaning that her taste for fist-fighting was first acquired and satisfied on the streets. Trainer Hilliard Edmund took Smith on as a student at his 8^th Street Gym which had previously welcomed through its doors Newark native Marvin Hagler, Saoul Mamby, and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, who at the time was still going by Eddie Gregory and, eight months away from unseating WBA world light-heavyweight champion Marvin Johnson, would be sharing the July 16 undercard in Harlem with Toni Tucker and Gladys Smith. Now that she was dedicated to carving out a better life for herself and her two young sons, Smith was optimistic that a victory over Tucker might inspire some of her friends still living the gang life to change their ways as well. Gladys’ good intentions notwithstanding, ‘Leatherneck’ Tucker promised, “I’m going to knock her block off.”

Dressed in camouflage pants, a white t-shirt emblazoned with the Magnificent 13 logo, and the organization’s trademark red beret, Tucker exhibited military-type punctuality by appearing for the weigh-in at the State Athletic Commission offices not one minute later than the appointed time of 11:30am, tipping the scales at 157 pounds. Her opponent, however, was missing in action and feared to be a no-show like she was for a fight in Nova Scotia a few months prior, an infraction that resulted, oddly enough, in the suspension not of Gladys Smith but her trainer Hilliard Edmund by the Nova Scotia Athletic Commission. Because of a mutual agreement between the two entities, the NYSAC would uphold Nova Scotia’s actions against Edmund and prevent him from working Smith’s corner, assuming she turned up at some point.

The suspense was brought to an end two hours later when Gladys finally materialized and weighed in at 160 on the nose. The gynecological exams performed on both Smith and Tucker came back clean and it looked like the fight was on. But no so fast. While Gladys Smith did indeed show up at the 369^th Regiment Armory, she left her mandatory breast protector back home in Newark. Without it she would not be allowed to enter the ring, so an anxiety-inducing round-trip from Harlem to Jersey was undertaken and completed with just twenty minutes to spare before bell time.       

2,500 fans filled the Armory to witness history in the making as Gladys ‘Bam’ Smith and Toni ‘Leatherneck’ Tucker stood in opposing corners, came to center ring for referee Billy Graham’s instructions, touched gloves, and commenced to swinging. Smith was the far busier, not to mention stronger, of the two from the outset, peppering Tucker with left/right combinations throughout the six 2-minute rounds. Surprisingly, fatigue seemed to set in rather quickly for Tucker, who could be seen rolling her mouthpiece around with her tongue from the second round on in an effort to clear passage for the intake of more air.

Her mouthpiece spilled out onto the canvas in the fourth and Toni fumbled around trying to clumsily pick it up and shove it back in with a gloved hand. Since referee Billy Graham neglected to call timeout to allow Tucker to get her bearings, Smith nailed her defenseless foe with three consecutive left hands. Tucker grabbed Gladys in a clinch, holding on for dear life in a desperate attempt to smother the attack. Admonished by the referee, who appeared to be on the verge of stopping the fight, Tucker protested to Graham, “All I’m trying to do is get my mouthpiece back.”

Tucker lasted the distance, but it was Gladys Smith who had her hands raised in victory, one of which grasped a small trophy that was presented to her after the decision was announced. “I have to get in shape,” admitted an overjoyed Smith, who also took home a $400 payout. “I want to fight again. I want to be the champion.”

Gladys’ trainer, Hilliard Edmund, opined, “For two girls, it was an even match. You never know until you get in the ring and now she knows she has to train harder.”

Jack Brami, the assistant matchmaker for Madison Square Garden, was on hand to conduct a scouting mission to find talent worthy of fighting in the world’s most famous arena. Asked whether he felt women qualified based on the bout he had just watched between Gladys Smith and Toni Tucker, Brami remained noncommittal. “Up until now, we have no interest,” he said. “What remains in the future, I don’t know.”

Only a clairvoyant could predict with any degree of accuracy that it would be seventeen years in the future before the Garden would host a women’s boxing match when Kathy Collins outpointed Andrea DeShong over six rounds on August 20, 1996.

To illustrate how far women’s boxing has evolved, we fast forward again to the present day in 2025 as Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano prepare to conclude their trilogy on July 11 right back where it started, at Madison Square Garden. Already having shattered MSG’s metaphorical glass ceiling by becoming the first women to headline the ‘Mecca of Boxing’ on April 30, 2022, this time they will be topping a bill of all-female bouts. 

 

Sources:

Female Boxers (New York Daily Herald, March 17, 1876)

Jackie Tonawanda To Defend Women’s Title (Macon Telegraph, February 15, 1979)

War Memorial Boxing Includes Female Debut (Binghamton Press and Bulletin, April 13, 1979)

Bob Snyder. Women’s Pro Boxing Bout KO’d by Physical Exam (Syracuse Herald-Journal, April 13, 1979)

‘Snyde’ Remarks (Syracuse Herald-Journal, April 14, 1979)

Aaron C. Elson. A Couple of Girls Ring in NYS History Tonight (New York Daily News, July 16, 1979)

Aaron C. Elson. Women’s Bout Nearly KO’d (New York Daily News, July 17, 1979)

N.Y. Hosts Its First Women’s Boxing Match (Central New Jersey Home News, July 17, 1979)

Aaron C. Elson. Bam Gets Nod Over Toni in 6 (New York Daily News, July 17, 1979)

Bob Straetz. It’s No Sport For Women (Poughkeepsie Journal, April 12, 1981)