Gabriela Fundora Discusses Growing Up in a Boxing Family and Her Upcoming Flyweight World Title Fight Versus Arely Muciño

“No matter what I do, my family will always be there and have my back,” Gabriela Fundora impressed upon me recently. 

She comes from a fighting family, each one of them having been boxers at one time or another and for varying lengths of time. The Fundoras’ home base is Coachella, the Southern California city with a global recognition based primarily on the annual music festival bearing its name. But the Fundora family has been doing everything in its power since relocating there a decade ago to put Coachella on the map as a world-renowned boxing town.

Gabriela’s brother and best friend Sebastian, the six and a half foot tall ‘Towering Inferno,’ held the interim version of the WBC super-welterweight title and was in line for a world title shot until just recently when he suffered his first professional defeat this past April. His sister, meanwhile, floored and decisioned Maria Santizo on the undercard.

“Sebastian and I do everything together. Whether it be training alongside each other or going to the store,” says Gabriela. “We keep each other on our toes. There is no better person to share your same passion with than your sibling.”

Sebastian is intent on using the learning experience of being knocked out by Brian Mendoza to go back to the drawing board and resume his trajectory toward winning a world championship. However, it seems as if his sister just might beat him to the punch. Gabriela will be vying for her first world title against IBF flyweight champion Arely Muciño on October 21.   

“My other brothers boxed briefly but they went a different route because boxing was not their passion,” explains Gabriela. “I also have a little sister, Fabiola, (nicknamed ‘Twisted Sister’) that is training very hard and will soon start her amateur career.”

Their father and trainer Freddy, a Cuban exile who fled from the Castro regime with his parents in the late 70s, was taught to box by an uncle when he was just a little boy and spent a short time as a professional fighter after first settling in Florida. Freddy’s second wife, Monique, had ventured into the squared circle herself on three successful occasions before gifting her pink gloves to a young Gabriela in a sort of rite of passage.

“My role models not just in boxing but in everything are my parents. They have been my life coach since I was born,” she insists with a familial pride that is unflappable. “I wouldn’t be where I’m at today if it wasn’t for them.”

Gabriela started learning how to throw jabs and slip punches when most other kids are still getting the hang of their A, B, C’s and 1, 2, 3’s. “I began boxing at the age of six,” she tells me. “I won the Junior Olympics and the Nationals multiple times and was named boxer of the tournament for Nationals. I was also named boxer of the year in 2017.”

Because Gabriela, who was 18 at the time, just missed the age cutoff to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games, I was curious to know if she gave any consideration to sticking around for a chance to go for the gold in 2024. “No,” she responded without hesitation. “By the time my amateur career ended, Covid hit. Deciding to go pro was probably one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made. I always knew that I wanted to become professional and I took Covid as a time to transition.”

Signing a long-term promotional contract with Sampson Lewkowicz, who also represents Sebastian, the five-foot-nine southpaw who calls herself ‘Sweet Poison’ made her pro debut on May 15, 2021 by decking Jazmin Valverde in the second round en route to a four-round unanimous decision.

As a novice to the paid ranks, Gabriela was the beneficiary of invaluable sparring sessions with Cecilia Braekhus and words of wisdom from Christy Martin. She fought once a month from July to October of her rookie year, emerging victorious in all but the last outing, a no-contest against Alejandra Martinez which to date represents the lone blemish on her otherwise spotless record (11-0, 4 KOs).    

Gabriela has shared the bill with Sebastian on two occasions, the first of which saw Fundora capture her first title by beating Naomi Reyes last October to claim the vacant WBC Latino flyweight belt while her brother scored an impressively wide decision over Carlos Ocampo in defense of his interim 154-pound championship. Her second belt was earned back in February when Gabriela outworked Tania Hernandez over ten rounds to take possession of the WBC Youth flyweight title.

Gabriela is currently ranked fourth by The Ring in the highly competitive 112-pound division headed up by unified champion Marlen Esparza. Positioned ahead of Ibeth Zamora, Fundora is poised to overtake Kenia Enriquez and Celeste ‘Chucky’ Alaniz, not to mention her upcoming opponent and IBF champion, Arely Muciño. The IBF’s number two contender, Gabriela was named as their mandatory challenger to Muciño (32-3-2, 11 KOs), who will be making the maiden defense of the world flyweight title she won by a controversial split decision over Leonela Yudica nearly a year ago against Fundora at the Forum in Inglewood on October 21.     

“We train hard for every fight. I’m glad now that we are able to take a next step into our goal,” Gabriela affirmed with extreme conviction. Not that she is in any way taking a victory over Muciño for granted, but Fundora nevertheless said to me, “My goal is to become a Unified World Champion.”

Speaking of champions, Gabriela got to mingle with the likes of Alicia Ashley, Lucia Rijker, Ann Wolfe, Rafael Marquez, Michael Nunn, and Roberto Duran to name a few, as well as fight fans from around the globe (myself included), at this year’s International Boxing Hall of Fame induction weekend in Canastota. Needless to say, she was accompanied by Sebastian, and both fun-loving siblings were joined by the Fundora patriarch, Freddy.

“The International Boxing Hall of Fame was a memorable moment for me because I was able to be alongside some of the greatest boxers in history,” recounted Gabriela. “I had my hand casted, I was even in the parade they do for the inductees.”

As for what kind of non-boxing related hobbies the soft-spoken but competitive Gabriela enjoys, she often engages in chess games and karaoke battles with Sebastian and also related to me, “During my free time I do enjoy a good book.”

To end on that note, Gabriela will be writing the next exciting chapter in her own life story next Saturday when she attempts to take the IBF flyweight title from Arely Muciño, making her hometown of Coachella proud and becoming the first world champion among the fighting Fundoras.  

(Me with Gabriela at the IBHOF Opening Bell Ceremony, June 2023)

Amanda Serrano and Danila Ramos Set to Break Women's Boxing 10x2 Title Fight Taboo on October 27

 

The 3-minute round debate has been a hot topic in and around women’s boxing for decades, with participants, enthusiasts, and critics alike passionately giving voice to their opinions both for and against. Same goes for the question of whether women’s championship matches should be scheduled for twelve rounds, same as men since 15-rounders were done away with in 1987, rather than the long-imposed duration of ten. 

Undisputed featherweight champion Amanda Serrano, a seven-division titleholder and one of the top three best pound-for-pound female fighters today, has been one of the more outspoken advocates for the lifting of such prejudicial restrictions in recent years. If you recall, she swiftly blindsided Katie Taylor with a challenge to fight twelve three-minute rounds in last April’s Madison Square Garden main event at the kickoff press conference. 

Katie politely declined. Not because she is averse to the concept on general principle but because the contract had already been signed and its terms, including the standard ten two-minute rounds for women’s title fights, agreed to. Not to mention the WBC wouldn’t have had any part of it. We’ll probe into that sore subject much more soon enough.  

For now, the main headline is that Serrano has found a willing dance partner to go the twelve three-minute-round distance with her in Danila Ramos. This will be the third bout apiece in 2023 for both combatants. Serrano made the fight announcement on social media just one month removed from having beaten Heather Hardy in her first defense as Undisputed featherweight champion after first taking the WBA title by force from Erika Cruz back in February.    

The 12-2 Ramos, a 38-year-old Brazilian who resides in Argentina, has rebounded nicely from a 2019 split decision loss to former world title challenger Katharina Thanderz by winning four straight fights. This year’s victories have been a unanimous decision against Julia Gabriela Celes for the South American featherweight championship and a split verdict over Brenda Karen Carbajal just three weeks ago to earn the interim WBO title and become their top contender to Serrano’s throne. 

“Danila Ramos may be my WBO mandatory challenger, but when we step in the ring, she will understand exactly why I am the Undisputed featherweight champion,” Serrano said in a press release. “But this fight is about more than some belts. We have faced a long and hard battle, united as women, to achieve the same pay, respect, and recognition in boxing. Together, on Friday, October 27, we will make history and prove to the world once again, how incredible women’s boxing is and that we are just as tough, dynamic, and capable as any man in the ring, if not more so. This is a fight for women everywhere to be treated the same as their male counterparts.”         

Ramos is enthusiastically up to the challenge. “Fighting Amanda Serrano for twelve three-minute rounds for a unified championship is set to break the barriers that we women have been looking to do for many years,” she stated. “We will go down in history and in the books. It will be a fight of two women warriors! I am preparing like never before for this fight and will proudly represent Brazil as we battle in Orlando, Florida and I look to bring all the belts home.”

If you pay close enough attention to Ramos’ remarks and give more than a cursory glance at the fight poster, the other major aspect to this fight, besides the 12x3 format, that is impossible to ignore is that it is being billed as a “unified championship” match, and not Undisputed. If you’re curious as to why, we have the WBC to thank for that. In October 2014, the sanctioning body issued a statement based on an inquiry ordered by president Mauricio Sulaiman and the subsequent conclusions reached during its first World Female Convention. The report began with this bold summation: The WBC Will Not Participate in Any Female Bout Scheduled for 12 rounds x 3 Minutes. The supporting evidence of the committee’s judgment focused on women’s bone density, menstrual cycles, and stamina levels.           

“They want to keep women in their place. Proof is in the actions, not some bullshit research,” Layla McCarter told me in 2016 when we discussed the issue for a feature-length story. “Science can be argued on any side your agenda calls for. I can get doctors that will argue contrary to the WBC doctor. Will it change their minds? The answer is no. Their minds were already set against.”

McCarter famously lobbied the Nevada State Athletic Commission to allow 3-minute rounds in 2006 and battled Belinda Laracuente for the GBU world lightweight title under the agreed-upon 10x3 guidelines on November 17 of that year in an instant classic at the Orleans Hotel and Casino. She beat Laracuente but McCarter’s fight wasn’t over yet. 

“After I was able to convince the Nevada State Athletic Commission to allow three-minute rounds, I wrote to the president of the Association of Boxing Commissions, Mr. Tim Lueckenhoff, to request that he change the guidelines that most commissions in the USA and others abide by,” Layla continued. “The regulations stated essentially that male boxers should fight no more than twelve 3-minute rounds and that female boxers should fight no more than ten 2-minute rounds. He agreed that it should be leveled by stating that all boxers male and female should fight no more than twelve 3-minute rounds. He proposed the change and the board passed it. Now it's up to fighters to push their individual state commissions when they fight to allow three-minute rounds. They can no longer point to ABC guidelines to deny it.”

Making good on her crusade, McCarter defended her title twice in bouts scheduled for twelve three-minute rounds. Neither fight lasted until the final bell, however, as she stopped Donna Biggers in the second, which also won Layla the vacant WBA world lightweight title, and forced Melissa Hernandez to quit on her stool after eight brutal rounds. 

More than twenty years before McCarter, Holly McDaniel broke the nose of ‘Darling’ Darlina Valdez in the eleventh round of their October 22, 1983 world bantamweight title fight in Santa Fe, New Mexico which ultimately saw Valdez crowned the new champion by unanimous decision at the conclusion of their fifteen-round scuffle. Yes, you read that right. Fifteen rounds. This was the first and only women’s 15x3 championship fight, but on March 24, 1986 in Denver, Colorado, Laurie Holt defeated Cora Webber over fifteen two-minute rounds in a world super-featherweight bout. 

Thanks to the diligent twenty seven-year record-keeping campaign undertaken by pioneering prizefighter turned archivist Sue Fox, we know that the first-known fifteen-round non-title women’s contest occurred in 1981 when former lightweight champion Sue ‘KO’ Carlson fought Tammy Jensen and, true to her ring moniker, put Jensen down for the count in the third. Jackie Holley competed in a pair of fifteen-rounders in 1984, flipping the script on Sue Carlson by knocking her out in the sixth on February 17 and lasting the full distance with Cora Webber’s twin sister Dora in a losing effort six months later.     

Which brings us full circle, back to Amanda Serrano and Danila Ramos pushing past present day boundaries and defying the so-called conventional wisdom arrived at by the likes of Mauricio Sulaiman who continues to defiantly protest that his goal is to “protect boxers from themselves.” There have even been rumblings that Sulaiman may see fit to punish the rebellious Serrano by stripping her of the green and gold belt. 

It seems as if potentially relinquishing her status as Undisputed champion is a price Amanda Serrano is willing to pay for the sake of the greater good.  

“This one is to show the world that anything a man can do, a woman can too,” Serrano posted on social media as a caption to the fight photo. “This one is to show we’re equal. This one is for boxing. Championship boxing. Orlando, Florida, I can’t wait to make history with you.”

Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy Show The World What Women's Boxing, At Its Best, Is All About

 

Last night’s Undisputed featherweight title fight with Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy in opposing corners was like something off a movie screen, carrying a personal significance to both women that far outweighed the tallies on the judges’ scorecards. 

Many supposed pundits didn’t give Heather Hardy a snowballs’ chance in hell of finishing the fight on her feet, or even hearing the bell for round two, and urged her corner to throw in the towel late in the bout. Those people may know boxing on a more than elementary level, but they don’t know the first thing about Heather Hardy. To the unbelievers she offered a succinct and sincere “Fuck yourself” this morning on social media. 

Watching the uplifting post-fight scene play out between Hardy and Serrano in the center of the ring made me think of the ending to the first Rocky movie where the theme music begins to swell and a bloodied and battered Balboa is frantically beckoning for Adrian, drowning out the verdict of his one in a million challenge against Apollo Creed which is being read by the ring announcer. 

Whether Rocky won or lost was purely incidental, the result something that needed to be recorded as an academic formality. What mattered was that he went the distance with the best in boxing and proved his worth to the world. And to himself. The same held true for Heather Hardy. Despite the odds, she has never been counted out in the ring. Nor in life. Hardy and Serrano have been through a lot, together as well as individually, and their shared struggles all came full circle in Dallas.   

“I got very, very lucky where I was able to come spar with her, show her that I’m tough, I want to learn, I just want to get better. So to be able to have her grab my hand and say come on Heat, let me help you because I know what you went through, it just means everything,” Hardy said with her arm around her friend Amanda after the two had just spent twenty minutes beating the daylights out of one another. 

“I gave everything I had today. I gave everything for three months. Everything,” exclaimed Heather, the tears she had been choking back coming forth in a torrent not unlike the blood that had coursed down her face during the last two rounds of the fight, the fans displaying their appreciation both for Hardy’s gutsy resilience and raw emotion with loud, sustained cheers. “I have no excuses,” she cried, emptying herself out soulfully in the same passionate manner with which she had just exerted herself physically. “That was everything.”

Humble and genuine as boxers come, Amanda Serrano responded to Heather’s outpouring of vulnerable gratitude with heartfelt sentiments of her own. “This is why we need to come together as female boxers and work together,” said Serrano, who personally saw to it that Hardy was given this massive opportunity to fight for her title and take home the first six-figure payday of her eleven-year career. “Don’t degrade each other. Let’s work together and make this beautiful sport of women’s boxing grow together.” 

This sequel to their 2019 fight more or less followed the same script. Little in the way of unexpected surprises and no twist ending. In no way did this make it any less entertaining. Serrano came out of the gate throwing heavy leather, unleashing merciless body blows and hooking with both hands, punches that had Heather hurt within the first thirty seconds and bleeding by the end of round one. 

Hardy maintained the mental wherewithal to fight her way off the ropes so as not to become a sitting duck for Amanda’s vast array of power punches, but the champion would stalk her prey and cut off the ring, not permitting Heather the benefit of time to hit the reset button between exchanges.

By the end of the third round, Hardy was not only still standing but beginning to fire back with a renewed sense of confidence, landing a succession of nice right hooks and nodding her head in Serrano’s direction as if to say, ‘I’m here for a fight, so let’s fight.’ Obliging this unspoken request, Amanda closed out the stanza with a trio of head-snapping right hands, two crosses and a hook. 

In round four, Serrano added to her already impressive punch selection by throwing left uppercuts into the mix, two of which hit their mark with Hardy backed against the ring strands. True to her leave-nothing-behind personality and work ethic, Hardy exhibited no resistance to standing and trading with the heavy-handed champion when a lesser adversary might have chosen to duck and cover if not run for the hills or lie down and accept their inevitable fate. 

In fact, Heather had her best rounds as the bout progressed past the halfway mark despite the cumulative punishment she was sustaining. At the end of each one hundred and twenty second-long frame, the two gunslingers would touch gloves or bump elbows as they crossed paths on the way back to their respective corners in a show of friendship and mutual respect.

Prior to round nine, the ringside physician consulted with a banged-up but battle-ready Hardy before he would give the go-ahead for the fight to proceed. Not only did she answer the questions to his satisfaction, the feisty Brooklynite returned to action with an incredulous smile and ‘Do you believe this shit?’ kind of shrug. 

Amanda dispelled whatever lingering notion any doubting naysayer might have had that she was taking it easy on her friend by bringing the fight directly to Hardy at the commencement of the penultimate round, looking like she was intent on getting the stoppage. Serrano being one of the best finishers in women’s boxing notwithstanding, Heather being Heather, a premature end to the bout was highly unlikely. 

But not so fast. With twenty seconds remaining in the ninth, Hardy was again summoned to visit with the ringside doctor, this time to check the severity of a cut on her hairline caused by an accidental clash of heads. After a few anxious moments, Heather was declared fit to fight. This revelation was not exactly worthy of a front page headline to Hardy, who beat her chest in King Kong-style defiance before resuming hostilities with Serrano as the crowd roared its approval. Amanda grinned from ear to ear, pounding both gloves against Hardy’s, and they picked up right where they left off.

Heather and Amanda embraced at center ring before the tenth and final round when it was again time to begin bashing each other’s faces, slugging away toe to toe with the crowd on its feet as if the decision was somehow in question. What couldn’t be questioned was Hardy’s fortitude and tenacity which, more than just muscle memory and a granite chin, kept her vertical even when she was driven back into the corner on wobbly legs after three straight lefts from Serrano. 

‘The Heat’ refused to be extinguished and came out swinging. Serrano did too, however, nailing Hardy with another left hook during the final exchange which brought the house down with a well-deserved standing ovation for the two warriors who shared one more hug, this one drenched in blood, sweat, and tears, after time expired and Heather had absorbed 278 punches. 

Their sisterhood springs eternal, the source of which lies at a place unseen by most. The secret point of origin where bonds are formed not merely of gender and geography but common life experience in the way of professional struggles and personal sacrifices carried out in the name of conjuring what Morgan Freeman’s character Scrap Iron Dupris in Million Dollar Baby calls “the magic of risking everything for a dream nobody sees but you.”

Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy Renew Their Acquaintance with an Undisputed Showdown in Dallas

Four years ago, they were fellow Brooklynites, world champions, sparring partners, stablemates, and friends who said they had no interest in an actual punch-up with one another despite public demand, especially among New York fight fans. But boxing is a funny thing, nothing if not unpredictable, and this Saturday Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy square off for the second time. This time with the Undisputed featherweight title on the line.   

Their September 13, 2019 scuffle was a pivotal turning point for both women, their trajectories diverging in dramatic fashion after the final bell. 

Hardy, the 22-0 WBO world featherweight champion, exhibited every bit of her trademark grit and tenacity in weathering a hellish first round onslaught but lost her belt and her undefeated record in one night. Serrano, already a seven-division world champion, continued her seven-year win streak by reclaiming the very title she had vacated in pursuit of another three years earlier, won next by her sister Cindy to keep the WBO belt in the family until she too relinquished it to open the door for Hardy’s reign which briefly interrupted the Serrano’s shared supremacy.    

Subsequently, Hardy would produce mixed results through her experimentation inside the MMA octagon before returning to boxing and moving up to lightweight, flooring Jessica Camara in the first round a year and a half after her defeat to Serrano but dropping a unanimous decision to the Canadian who earned a shot at then-WBA/WBO/IBO champion Kali Reis. A wrist injury forced Heather to pull out of a scheduled bout opposite a rebounding Terri Harper, and has since struggled to tough out victories over seasoned veteran Calista Silgado and relative newcomer Taynna Cardoso in her last two fights, six and eight rounders respectively. These bouts both occurred at the intimately-sized Sony Hall theater in Times Square whereas the now 41-year-old Hardy, who ten years ago became the first female signed to a long-term contract by Lou DiBella, was once the regularly featured attraction and major ticket seller at the Barclays Center.  

Meanwhile, Serrano was already being mentioned in the same breath as Katie Taylor as pound for pound ring rivals, her win over Heather being the second of a three-fight co-promotional deal between Lou DiBella and Eddie Hearn which was meant to culminate in a showdown between the Puerto Rican southpaw and the Bray Bomber. It took three years of tense negotiating to finally make it happen, but Katie and Amanda would eventually headline a sold-out Madison Square Garden last April. 

By this time, Serrano was awarded the WBC featherweight title stripped from Jelena Mrdjenovich, who failed to consent to a mandated unification fight against Amanda, and added the vacant IBO strap to her growing collection when she stopped Daniela Bermudez with a body shot in March 2021. Following her split decision loss to Katie Taylor, Serrano turned down an immediate rematch to become Undisputed at 126 pounds, which she did by defeating IBF titleholder Sarah Mahfoud and WBA champion Erika Cruz in back-to-back outings.  

An even more high-stakes Undisputed vs. Undisputed grudge match between Serrano and Taylor was announced in the Hulu Theatre ring right after Amanda’s bloody victory over Cruz, to have taken place in Dublin on May 20 but for an untimely injury which forced Serrano to withdraw. She was replaced by Chantelle Cameron, and we all know how that played out. However, with Katie’s lightweight crown still intact, Amanda insists that conversations are being had regarding their eagerly-awaited rematch, the result of Taylor/Cameron 2 notwithstanding. Taylor’s focus for the time being on avenging her first and only professional loss to Cameron left a recuperated Serrano with a void on her calendar in need of filling. 

Amanda’s four-year long Undisputed whistle stop tour began by disembarking at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theatre to take away the WBO belt that belonged to her friend Heather. No hard feelings. Strictly business. Hardy was wise to what was going on. She could see the writing on the wall when the contract was signed. The implication that, even as the reigning and defending champion, she was being offered up as a sacrificial lamb, a steppingstone to initiate Serrano’s ascendance toward the featherweight throne. Which only gave her all the more reason to fight like her life depended on it. In the boxing sense, it pretty much did.

Her re-emergence from near obsolescence and back into world title contention was made possible by Serrano’s desire to repay an old debt to a good friend, presenting Heather with the opportunity now that Hardy had first made possible for her four years ago. An act of reciprocal altruism that should not be mistaken for Serrano treating Heather as a charity case. 

Hardy is in good standing, having paid her debts to the fight game in full and deserving of what she is pragmatic enough to know is more than likely her last chance. To make that long walk from the dressing room down the aisle and bring ‘The Heat.’ To see her image lit up on an arena marquee. To defy the odds. To prove the doubters and haters wrong. To have her name remembered and spoken by future generations as a fighter who mattered.     

If pushing and shoving and talking shit during fight week is your thing, you’ve come to the wrong place. Nothing but mutual respect here, albeit with a dose of classic New York attitude. This Saturday in Dallas, Texas, Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy plan to show the world that you can take the girls out of Brooklyn, but see what happens when you try to take the Brooklyn out of these girls. 

Denied her mandatory shot at then-Undisputed super-middleweight champion Franchon Crews-Dezurn, who instead lost her title to Savannah Marshall last month, Shadasia Green stays busy with a tune-up against 7-1 Olivia Curry on this weekend’s undercard. 

Green last shared a bill with Serrano at the Hulu Theatre in February, decking and ultimately stopping former unified WBA/IBF 168-pound champion Elin Cederroos to send the unmistakable message to the women occupying the upper echelon of the division that you can run but you can’t hide from ‘The Sweet Terminator.’ This was the ninth knockout in a row for the power-puncher from Paterson, New Jersey, who has gone the distance only once in twelve fights so far.

As for Curry, the 33-year-old fighting out of Chicago is coming off a unanimous decision win over battle-tested veteran and former super-featherweight world champion Olivia Gerula on April 8. A 2019 National Golden Gloves finalist, Curry made her debut in the paid ranks two years later and experienced her only loss in her third pro bout, a four-round decision which went to Karina Avila Ortiz. 

Shadasia Green has had enough of standing by, next in line, and waiting patiently for her turn to come only to be ducked and leapfrogged. Saturday evening, she will look to take her frustrations out on Olivia Curry as a proxy for Savannah Marshall. No more deferments or formalities. Shadasia’s time is now.

Seniesa Estrada Rallies Past Leonela Yudica to Overcome Her Toughest Test to Date

 

Just like the caped crusaders in the comic books who exhibit their true heroism by persevering in the face of great adversity, Seniesa ‘Superbad’ Estrada kicked off a big boxing weekend in Sin City by digging deeper than she has ever had to before to triumph in the end over an unflinching challenge from Leonela Yudica.  

So as not to compete with Saturday’s Undisputed welterweight showdown between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence at the T-Mobile Arena, just two and a half miles away on the other side of the Vegas Strip from the Palms Casino Resort, Top Rank rescheduled the Estrada/Yudica bout, originally slated to also take place on the 29th, for Friday night instead. 

This marked a return visit for Estrada to the Palms’ Pearl Theater, only this time as the headliner. This past November, Seniesa successfully defended her WBA title there with an across-the-board shutout of Jazmin Villarino, ending an eleven-month layoff during which she parted ways with Golden Boy Promotions and inked a new deal with Top Rank.   

Yudica, who debuted in 2012 with a four-round decision over eventual four-time adversary Soledad del Valle Frías, was venturing stateside from her native Argentina for only the second time. Needless to say, Yudica was hoping for a better result than when her eight-year reign as IBF world flyweight champion came to an end by way of a controversial split decision loss to Arely Mucino in San Diego last October. This was Leonela’s only defeat in twenty-four contests going into Friday’s 105-pound title fight opposite Estrada, who was putting her newly unified WBA, WBC, and Ring magazine belts on the line. 

If there was any question whether or not Yudica would receive fair treatment from the judges in a close fight this time around, especially in Vegas against a pound for pound superstar with the backing of the promoter and network, it was well worth asking. Fortunately, the final decision would be free from controversy, a negligible point total notwithstanding. When all was said and done, the correct woman got the nod. But just barely. An upset-minded Leonela Yudica saw to that. 

The former flyweight champion stepped on the scales at a career-low 103.7, but her performance against Estrada betrayed no indication of ill effects from the weight cut. Quite the opposite. Seniesa started off the fight by simply doing what she does so well. Like no other, in fact. Working her way inside and throwing barrages of punches upstairs and down from both the orthodox and southpaw stances, pivoting to switch back and forth between the two in the course of a single encounter. 

Unlike many of Estrada’s past opponents, who were befuddled to the point of almost total helplessness by this technique, it didn’t take long for the crafty Yudica to make the necessary adjustments that allowed her to not only deal with Seniesa’s unconventional style but to make it work against her by catching the champion off-balance and unprotected during these ambidextrous shifts.  

Advantages in height and reach also worked in Leonala’s favor, as Estrada’s tendencies to stand tall while engaging in close and retreat straight back without pulling her head off the line created inviting opportunities for her challenger to capitalize on. The left hook was Yudica’s best weapon throughout the first few rounds, getting the measure of Estrada to counter effectively and frequently. But her right hand was put to use as well, finding its target on Seniesa’s cheekbone with increasing precision as the bout went on.

Well aware of what Yudica was up to and that her game plan was being implemented with much success, Estrada’s coach Dean Campos instructed her to be mindful of her defense, keeping her guard high and tight in addition to dipping down and around while trading in close quarters. What’s more, Campos wanted Seniesa to lure Yudica into traps then spring quickly into action, tricking her foe into thinking she was doing one thing before defying expectation and coming at her from another angle entirely. 

Executing this strategy, Estrada pulled slightly ahead as the fight passed the halfway point, but Leonela remained patient, poised, and prepared to play the long game. It’s not sufficient to say that she was putting Seniesa to the test. Timing Estrada to exploit any opening she could find and beat Seniesa to the punch, Yudica seemed to be pulling away with the fight as the championship rounds approached.       

“Don’t try to look spectacular. Just win the fight. You can look spectacular next time,” Dean Campos implored Estrada after round eight which went to Yudica and, depending on how you were seeing things, put Seniesa in the rare position of being beaten up and behind on the scorecards with time running out to pull even much less ahead. 

With swelling beneath her left eye and needing to decisively win the last two rounds, Estrada demonstrated her ability to work smart as well as work hard. Utilizing her bait and switch tactic to great effect in summoning Yudica forward and setting her up for the left hook, Seniesa closed the show with sublime ring generalship to remain undefeated and retain her titles by identical tallies of 97-93.     

The road to Undisputed at 105 now has only two passengers, with Seniesa Estrada and Yokasta Valle destined for a spectacular head-on collision in the hopefully not too distant future. Whomever manages to better withstand the force of the impact will walk away from that crash with bragging rights and all the belts to back it up.  

Valle, the Costa Rican IBF/WBO champion, last fought on March 25 when she handed previously unbeaten Jessica Basulto Salazar her first career defeat before a home crowd the same night Estrada lifted the WBC belt off of Tina Rupprecht in Fresno, California to compliment her WBA strap as well as the inaugural Ring magazine minimumweight title. 

Estrada vs. Valle is without question one of the most competitive and anticipated women’s bouts to be made. And it could very well set the stage for an Undisputed vs. Undisputed grudge match between Seniesa and arch rival Marlen Esparza, assuming of course that Esparza meets and defeats Arely Mucino to merge every single flyweight title together in the meantime as well.    

Valle was in attendance Friday evening, confronting Estrada in the ring after her victory to tempt her into a fight in Costa Rica by flaunting her drawing power in Central America. “I fill stadiums, not theaters,” she said with obvious scorn and ridicule.

“It’s going to be an ass beating,” a jubilant and confident Estrada responded. “Not only am I beating her, I’m beating her trainer, and I’m beating Golden Boy Promotions. Superbad all day! Let’s go!” 

Alycia Baumgardner Victorious in Second Skirmish with Christina Linardatou to Gain Revenge and Remain Undisputed

Alycia Baumgardner had a lot to prove Saturday night in Detroit.

That she is a box office draw as a main eventer. That she could make the first successful defense of her undisputed super-featherweight title. And that she had come a long way in the five years since her first and only defeat to last evening’s challenger, Christina Linardatou. Far enough to finally get the opportunity to manifest the knowledge taken away from that humbling learning experience into the tools necessary to fashion a satisfying revenge victory.

As for Linardatou, who borrows her boxing nickname ‘Medusa’ from the mythology of her Greek heritage, she was primed and ready to put in a repeat performance and skyrocket to super stardom by turning Baumgardner to stone. 

Channeling the spirit of Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Linardatou wore a red baseball cap to Friday’s weigh-in with the word WAR written on it, just as Hagler had done before his 1985 rumble with the ‘Motor City Cobra’ Thomas Hearns. 

War was delivered as promised by both challenger and champion. While it may not have matched the savagery of Hagler/Hearns (few, if any, bouts have), their action-packed title fight at the Masonic Temple produced no shortage of thrills all its own, the second half specifically when things truly heated up.

Baumgardner came out bombing, letting her hands go in the opening round in a torrent of combinations, uppercuts, and body shots that elicited only one reaction from Linardatou–a smile. With a busy jab and a succession of straight right hands that were the bane of Baumgardner’s existence in their first fight, Linardatou dictated the flow of the next couple of frames as Alycia gave in to her ponderous tendency to take a round or two off following a particularly productive one. 

Round four began in much the same vein as Linardatou landed a clean right within the first few seconds and the champion waiting until less than sixty seconds remaining to engage in any meaningful way.

A short, sharp left hook from Linardatou early in the fifth turned Baumgardner’s head around. It called for a response from Baumgardner in the form of a left uppercut which set in motion the frantic pace that would continue more or less unabated throughout the rest of the fight. 

In the later going, contested largely at close quarters, it was Baumgardner’s turn to take a cue from Marvin Hagler by alternating between an orthodox and southpaw stance just like the lefthanded Marvelous One was famous for doing. This tactic proved effective for Baumgardner as it kept Linardatou guessing and somewhat off-balance, allowing Alycia to floor the accelerator and begin to do some damage.

The scorecards seemed to be a bit too wide in favor of Baumgardner across the board, as the judges ruled unanimously for her to retain her undisputed championship by questionable margins of 98-92 (x2) and 99-91 when Linardatou made it a much closer fight than these numbers would have you believe.   

Nevertheless, the question now is whether Baumgardner remains at 130 or chases after the legacy fights and big paydays against the likes of Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, and Chantelle Cameron, all of whom are on her most wanted list. And, speaking of repeat or revenge fights, Mikaela Mayer, who was originally supposed to have gone up against Linardatou in April, is still talking about wanting to even the score with Baumgardner. 

For now, we will have to play a patient waiting game while ‘The Bomb’ weighs her options and decides on a direction in which to explode next.

There Won’t Be Any Pulling of Punches: Caroline Svendsen, Boxing’s First Lady of the 1970s

 

Born April 18, 1939 in East Oklahoma and residing in the mining town of Virginia City, Nevada in the summer of 1975, Caroline Svendsen had already lived a pretty full life. A child bride at thirteen, Svendsen was divorced two times and counting. She was a mother to a pair of teenage boys, Joe and Robbie, and a nineteen-year-old daughter, Dolores, who had a kindergarten aged son of her own, making her Grandma Caroline. 

A former softball pitcher back in California, she made her living working construction and remodeling homes during the day and serving cocktails by night, water skiing and camel racing in her leisure time. And all this before her 35th birthday. At least that’s the number she would provide to sports reporters. Caroline would later admit to knocking two years off her actual age when being interviewed. 

The reason her name began appearing in newspapers that June had to do with the intrigue swirling around her intention to become a professionally licensed boxer and Svendsen, with good reason, was trepidatious about the prospect of a 36-year-old grandmother being taken seriously by the Nevada Athletic Commission. But serious she was about this audacious if not completely unprecedented venture. ‘Countess’ Jeanne LaMar had been licensed by the state of New Jersey in 1923, and Barbara Buttrick and Phyllis Kugler were both officially sanctioned by the Texas State Athletic Commission ahead of their 1957 bantamweight title bout in San Antonio. 

“There are women in so many sports, about any sport a man does. I think it’s exciting to be a boxer. Maybe it’s something different,” mused Svendsen. “They’re probably going to laugh at me. If they do, that would probably make me more determined to do it, and do it good.”

Caroline traveled to Gardnerville on July 3 and personally put her completed application forms in the hands of the Commission’s executive secretary James Deskin, who was sitting ringside to supervise a night of fights. “She’s a very intelligent person. A well-spoken person,” said Deskin when giving his first impression of the female applicant. Several concerns had to be addressed before the Commission would proceed. “Number one, I want the evaluation of the doctors,” Deskin began. His first task was to gather opinions from medical professionals regarding whether there might be an increased risk of developing cancer from being struck in the breasts. 

Second on his list of worries was finding a suitable female opponent for Svendsen. “Who’s she gonna fight?” asked Deskin rhetorically before jumping to a wild conclusion. “She’ll never fight a man as long as I’ve got anything to do with the Commission.” This declaration was a moot point, as Svendsen had no intention of engaging in mixed gender matches. Her manager Ted Walker, who previously guided the careers of Larry ‘Irish Pat’ Duncan and middleweight John L. Sullivan and had heavyweight journeyman Terry Hinke on his current roster, was actively searching for a woman to match Caroline against for a spot on the September 19 card scheduled for Virginia City to be headlined by Hinke, who was coming off a year-long sabbatical following a TKO loss to Chuck Wepner. 

“I’m not a meat-wagon manager and I agonized over the possibility of her getting hurt before she had any basic skills,” avowed Walker. “Before I ever put a glove on her, I gave Caroline three weeks of tough conditioning. She didn’t holler about those calisthenics, and still doesn’t, so I knew she was serious about becoming a boxer,” he said. “Her best punches are right jabs and right crosses to the head,” he said. “I’ve gotten in the ring with her and boxed, I bet, 250 rounds with her. If I don’t watch myself real closely, she’ll catch me a good one and down I’ll go.”

An astute James Deskin couldn’t help but notice that Caroline used her left hand while filling out her application, another variable he saw as being problematic. “I told her, ‘You have another strike against you,’” he remarked, “‘because it’s hard to find an opponent for a southpaw.’” Nevertheless, Svendsen was approved for her license during the next Commission meeting one week later with “no debate on the matter” despite the absence of doctor’s reports on the breast cancer issue. 

In a scornful column for the Spokesman-Review out of Spokane, Washington, Nick Thimmesch dismissed women’s boxing as no more than a “current rage” taking place conveniently enough, he couldn’t help but point out, in “Nevada, the only state where prostitution is legal.” Contempt like this coming from those who refused to distinguish between a hooker and a left-hooker aside, all Caroline needed to do now was pay the $5 application fee and find a worthy adversary. The former was easy enough. The latter not so much. 

Jenny Toma was the first name Ted Walker submitted to the Commission as a possible opponent for Svendsen, but James Deskin vetoed her under the suspicion that she was a 51-year-old from Phoenix he knew of who wrestled under the name Princess Toma. Aged 28 and hailing from Drain, Oregon, Connie Costello was given the go-ahead in early September to square off against Svendsen.  

Costello sparred in preparation with her husband, who just two years prior had won the Seattle-Tacoma Golden Gloves in the welterweight division. Mike Snyder, a professional middleweight, was asked by Ted Walker to assess Connie’s skills and reported back that “she’s lithe and moves around the ring good.” Things were finally progressing smoothly until Deskin threw a wrench into the works by insisting that the women’s bout be contested not as an officially sanctioned fight, but as an exhibition.   

“I think they’re trying to keep me out. I have my license and I’m qualified,” complained Svendsen, who had been working out since receiving her license in July at the Clear Creek Youth Center Gym, a 48-mile round trip. Up before 6am, she started each day with a one-mile run followed by 50 sit-ups, sparring, and hitting the heavy bag.

“We’ve got to start somewhere. I definitely want it to be a real fight. I wouldn’t want to spend my whole career fighting exhibitions because no state wanted to be the first,” said Svendsen. “As long as it’s going to be a girl fighting another girl, why should anyone object to it?” Given no choice but to comply or capitulate, Caroline vowed, “There won’t be any pulling of punches.”

Her grim determination notwithstanding, Svendsen experienced a bout of stage fright before her public workout at a Virginia City saloon three days from fight night, the very thought of which was enough for Caroline to admit, “I almost threw up.” Color-coordinated in matching white tank top, denim cutoffs, and boxing shoes, Svendsen sparred with Benny Casing, a retired Stockton, California featherweight who had embarked on a one-fight comeback three years prior. With nearly 200 fans on hand to watch that afternoon’s action, Terry Hinke went a few rounds with Yaqui Lopez, who was one week away from a rematch with Jesse Burnett in Stockton. 

“I have no idea what I’m afraid of,” said Svendsen with one more public workout to conduct the following evening at the Silver Queen Hotel before wading into uncharted waters on Friday. “I don’t know what I’m going to act like when I see my opponent. I’m wondering what my reactions are going to be.”

The opponent Caroline would see and react to would not be Connie Costello after all. Svendsen’s manager Ted Walker alleged that Costello backed out of the fight because “she felt Caroline was too good for her.” Whatever the case, twenty-eight year-old meat-cutter and former wrestler Jean Lange was scared up as a last-minute replacement for Costello. Claiming to have fought to a non-sanctioned four-round draw with a woman named Toma on an Indian reservation in 1973 (presumably the same Toma suggested as Svendsen’s original competitor), Lange hadn’t been near a gym for six months before getting the call on Thursday night.

The five-bout show would take place in a makeshift “bleacher stadium” erected in the parking lot of Virginia City’s Delta Saloon which could accommodate 2,000 spectators but ultimately sat somewhere between twelve to fifteen hundred. Svendsen weighed in at 138 with Lange tipping the scales at 134, both women made by the Nevada Athletic Commission to wear breast and pelvic protectors. “My niece didn’t want to come because she’s afraid I’m going to get beat and embarrass her,” said Svendsen. Her daughter Dolores, however, was in attendance to lend some much-appreciated moral support. As for wishing Mom good luck, she wouldn’t need it.

Despite a case of “first fight jitters,” Svendsen needed only 50 seconds to do away with Jean Lange courtesy of a pair of uppercuts delivered with her glittery gold left-hand glove. “Bring on Ali!” one overzealous audience member was heard yelling. Outfitted for the occasion in a long-sleeved orange and white sweater, beige gloves, gray trunks over black mesh nylons, and black boxing shoes, Lange landed a “wild left” shortly after the opening bell which was said to be the highlight of her offensive output. 

“At first, when I came out, I saw all these fists coming at me like a windmill. But the punches in the face brought me around and I soon realized what the other girl was doing. That’s when I started to fight back,” Svendsen recounted afterwards. “I couldn’t believe it when I knocked her out,” Caroline continued, though she expressed concern over the fact that it took approximately twenty seconds for Lange to awaken from her imposed slumber. “Either they get hurt or I get hurt,” she theorized. “She was out to get me down first…only I was stronger.”   

After regaining her senses, Lange relented, “She’s a very good fighter.” Whether she had fully gotten her wits about her was up for debate, as Lange was eager for more. “She showed me a few good punches, but that’s about it,” she swore. “Next time I’ll be in the shape to take her.” 

Steve Sneddon of the Reno Gazette-Journal wrote, “It was a terrible mismatch. A man wouldn’t have been permitted to do the same thing. Opponents should be thoroughly checked by the Commission.” 

On the other hand, the more positive media attention being given to Svendsen was responsible for a recent uptick in Nevada area gym memberships specific to women showing an interest in boxing. “I’ve gotten quite a few letters from girls who’ve heard what I’m doing and have been encouraged to try boxing at the amateur level,” related Caroline. “Maybe they’ll be tomorrow’s pros.”

This trend was not exactly welcomed by Ray Tavares, who coached an amateur boxing team called the Reno Jets. “I just don’t understand it,” Tavares grumbled. “I believe girls are making a big mistake by getting involved in boxing and other contact sports. They just can’t take punishment like a boy can, and they might get hurt.” Sparks Junior Boxing Club president Johnny Rogers echoed Tavares’ cynicism. “I don’t know how many we’re going to get,” he said, referring to female hopefuls, “but I hope it’s not too many.”      

Fresh off her knockout victory, Caroline attended the September 24 Yaqui Lopez/Jesse Burnett return bout in Stockton at the Civic Auditorium. San Diego light-heavyweight Hildo Silva, who had dropped a pair of unanimous decisions to Yaqui the year before, was brought into the ring and introduced to the crowd before the main event. Svendsen was acknowledged as well, but suffered the indignity of having to stand and wave to the fans from her seat. 

“We won’t let women in the ring. The policy was adopted by the Commission,” explained CSAC executive officer Roy Tennyson in justification of Svendsen’s snub. “Some promoters wanted to use women announcers in the ring so the Commission said there wouldn’t be any women in the ring.” It’s worth noting that just seven months later California would indeed allow women into the ring–specifically Pat Pineda and Kim Maybee, who fought on April 28, 1976 at the Los Angeles Forum–after granting Pineda the first license issued to a female prizefighter in the state’s history in January.

Ted Walker was looking to get Caroline back in the ring as soon as possible which was fine with her. With the search for a new opponent underway, Svendsen was again called on to alleviate the concern that she might entertain the notion of doing battle with a member of the opposite sex. “I don’t want to fight men. I never have,” she affirmed. “And besides, if you beat him, his ego would be crushed. He could never go into a bar again,” Caroline joked. 

“I don’t want to look like a man out there in the ring. I think we should go out there with nice hair-do’s and look nice. In fact, when Jean knocked down one of the curls in my fight, that’s when I really got mad,” quipped Svendsen, putting her sense of humor on display for the press. “No, really, it’s got to be developed as a woman’s sport. We just can’t compete with men,” she said. “There’s really going to be a future in boxing for women.”

Not without a struggle, it was announced on October 9 that Svendsen would next compete in two weeks’ time opposite Jennie Josephs of Manteca, California at the Multnomah County Exposition Center in Portland, Oregon. The Portland Boxing Commission’s resolution to permit a women’s fight to appear on the card required commissioner Nick Sckavone to cast the deciding vote in the affirmative, breaking a 2-2 stalemate. Better yet, the commission ruled that it would be a sanctioned bout and not an exhibition. 

Josephs fell ill two days prior to the event and was unable to fulfill her contractual obligation due to influenza and laryngitis. Ready and eager to have another go at Svendsen, the reliable Jean Lange caught the next Portland-bound flight out of Phoenix after she got the call. 

“I really expected it to last a little longer,” Lange remarked about the first fight. “I think the altitude got to me. I’m a pretty physical person. I always keep myself in good shape.” Committed to staying fit since her knockout loss to Svendsen, her daily workout routine consisted of running, skipping rope, pushups, and sparring against men.  

“I think women should be in boxing. I think women should do anything they’re capable of doing. If I could have started when I was about 16 years old, I probably would have done it,” said Lange, whose nine-year-old son was obviously a fan of Mom’s pugilistic exploits. “He thinks it’s great. There’s not too many kids around who can say, ‘My mother is a boxer.’” 

The same enthusiasm evidently wasn’t shared by at least a random sampling of the 2,100 fans crammed inside the Expo Center the night of October 23. Or by the Associated Press reporter sent to cover the bout who called it “an alley fight complete with flailing arms and wild punches” preceded by “catcalls, wolf whistles, and applause.” 

The first two rounds were apparently uneventful, with only glancing blows landed by both women. Svendsen was noted as being the aggressor, pursuing Lange around the ring. When she was able to catch up with her backpedaling foe, Caroline needed to be extricated from several clinches by referee Louie Meyer.  

“This’ll put the game back a hundred years,” some man was heard yelling after first offering to place a $100 wager on Lange, or as he referred to her, “the one in blue.” Whether or not anyone took him up on the bet, he went on to groan, “If they’re going to box, teach ‘em how to box–somebody!” Another dissatisfied paying customer bellowed, “I know four gals who could beat the hell out of both of them!” 

In round three, a hard right cross delivered by Jean Lange got the attention of the audience, which collectively “stomped and clapped” its approval, as well as Svendsen whose upswept hairdo came partially undone from the force of the punch. Caroline made sure Lange’s advantage was short-lived by backing her into the ropes and unloosing a barrage of body blows. 

Svendsen and Lange were both spent before the end of the fourth and final round, producing flurries with no significant accumulation. They hugged at the final bell to a chorus of boos and one heckler screaming at them to “go home!” Declared the winner by unanimous decision thanks to scores of 40-37, 40-38, and 40-39, Svendsen was unbothered by the agitators. 

“They can boo me all they want,” she said in the locker room afterwards, “and I can laugh all the way to the showers.” Though she attested to the fact that she wasn’t in it for the money, Caroline’s exuberant demeanor may have been helped by a bump in pay, from $200 for her exhibition in September to $500 for that evening’s win. “I was expecting a hard fight because I beat her before and she jumped at the chance,” she said. 

Lange also refused to let the ridicule get to her. Despite losing to Svendsen on a second consecutive occasion, at least she finished this fight on her feet. “I feel great,” she stated defiantly. “I’m ready to go another four rounds.”     

Ted Walker was happy with Svendsen’s progress. “One thing I like even better than the knockout left is the way she blocks and parries,” her manager enthused. “That’s a knack some boxers never learn. They pay no attention to defense and just want to punch all the time.” He was already in the process of lining up her next fight, allowing Caroline some time off training to travel to New York so that she could be a contestant on To Tell the Truth where a panel of celebrity guests try by process of elimination to determine which of three contestants is the correct person associated with the backstory presented to them.  

Svendsen’s father Carl, the captain of a San Pablo sportfishing boat, seemed proud of his daughter’s growing reputation as a boxer. “If that’s what she wants to do, I guess that’s ok,” he offered with a hint of paternal reluctance. “She was always a strong kid. I’ve seen times years ago when we’d really get into it wrestling around the house. Sometimes we cleaned out a few rooms of furniture that way.” 

Keeping to her monthly fight schedule, Caroline was back in the ring on November 22. Returning to Oregon, Svendsen this time found herself at the Lane County Fairgrounds in Eugene. With ‘The Aurora Lumberjack’ Terry Hinke again topping the bill in a “Do or Die Effort” according to the fight program, Svendsen’s four-rounder against Nadine Gamboa of Fullerton, California was advertised as a “Special History Maker” with this being the first time female prizefighters had competed in the city of Eugene.

Caroline and Hinke would each send their opponents home early that night. The main event of the evening saw Terry Hinke score a fourth-round knockout of Sergio Rodriguez, a 5-5-1 Haitian by way of Brooklyn whose every loss to that point had occurred by way of KO and was currently going under the assumed name Walker Simmons. Earlier on the show, Svendsen put the one and done Nadine Gamboa down for the count in round two for her third straight win bookended by a pair of stoppages.  

Svendsen served as maid of honor to Terry Hinke’s bride Bobbe Goodsell at the couple’s December wedding in Virginia City, presided over by Justice of the Peace Edward Coletti with Ted Walker as Hinke’s best man. Not only would Caroline close out the calendar year without another fight, but the slim pickings in terms of opposition would keep her out of the ring for another five months. In fact, although neither of them could possibly know it at the time, Svendsen and Hinke both had only two more fights apiece in their respective future.

Next up for Svendsen at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe Hotel on May 5, 1976 was the baby-faced Ersi Arvizu, a singer turned boxer who was 28 but looked easily ten years younger. The daughter of boxing trainer Art Arvizu, a young Ersi would lend a helping hand in the family’s backyard gym. Arvizu’s musical influence came from her mother, who encouraged her three daughters to do what she was unable to because of her husband’s jealousy. Ersi formed a doowop group with her siblings Rosella and Mary called, naturally enough, The Sisters. The trio went from performing at school dances to becoming the opening act for Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, the Righteous Brothers, and Sonny and Cher on the strength of a #3 hit record, their cover version of the Dixie Cups’ “Gee, Baby, Gee.” 

An opportunity presented itself for Arvizu to front the R & B, jazz, and salsa infused rock band El Chicano in 1970, including playing a concert on the baseball field at Leavenworth Penitentiary. This was particularly memorable to Ersi as a scary experience, being ushered with great urgency by prison guards through the gathering of sex-starved inmates. She later moved to Arizona where she sang in nightclubs and decided to take up boxing without her parent’s approval, or knowledge for that matter. “I grew up with boxing,” Ersi said to the Reno Gazette Journal’s Steve Sneddon. “I’m boxing because I love it. I love the art of boxing.”  

Flummoxed by Arvizu’s tendency to fight out of a crouch and bothered by repeated punches to the face, Svendsen couldn’t help but feel that this just wasn’t her night. “Things felt different,” she would remark later. Her premonition, if you can call it that, came to pass in the second round when a wardrobe malfunction in front of 700 fans spelled the beginning of the end.

Boxers are cautioned to “protect yourself at all times” which is advice Svendsen failed to heed when she paused mid-round to adjust her bra which had slipped out of place. Seizing the moment, Arvizu sprang from her crouch and flattened the preoccupied Caroline with a right hand sufficiently to cause referee Mills Lane to halt the bout at the 1:26 mark. “I blew it. I forgot everything I learned,” said a disappointed but not deflated Svendsen. “It’ll just make me train harder. I know now what it’s like to lose and get halfway knocked out.”  

With some extra time on her hands after her knockout victory, Ersi Arvizu got a bite to eat and headed over to the Hyatt lounge. Not content to just sit back and watch the jazz combo play, Ersi got onstage to sing with them, catching the eye and ear of the venue’s promoter who signed her to an exclusive deal for three fights and lounge performances. “The promoter told me, ‘I will pay you this much money to box and sing,’” Ersi said. “I told him, ‘What if I get a black eye? What if they stop me? It’s not gonna look good.’”

At the age of 74, Arvizu is still a renowned and active vocalist today. Her boxing career didn’t have anywhere near the same longevity. Her father was handed a copy of The Ring magazine by a fellow patron of his local barbershop who wanted to know why Art’s daughter was featured inside, and that was that. 

“My mother called me, crying, saying it was a disgrace to our family, why are you doing this? So I just stopped,” Ersi remembers, calling it quits after just four fights and some apparent soul searching that altered her personal beliefs about women in boxing. “I was okay with it, because to me, honestly, it's not a woman's sport,” reasoned Arvizu, who subsequently trained boxers like her father. However, also like her father, never women. “They asked me to, but I refused to, because I don't believe a woman should be in that ring. The reason I did it is, I needed to take it out of my system." 

Two weeks following her TKO loss to Arvizu, Caroline tied the knot for the third time, to Frank Ford of Reno. Four days later, she found herself on the receiving end of an indefinite suspension from the Nevada Athletic Commission. Like her first two marriages, this one was similarly doomed to failure and was over within four years but would outlast the remainder of her boxing career. 

“By rights they should have called me so somebody could’ve been there for my defense,” argued Svendsen regarding the Commission’s decision to suspend her without warning. “It’s like being on trial by proxy.”   

James Deskin spoke to the media in defense of the Commission, which made the ruling at its monthly meeting on May 20. “She’s been suspended because of the beating she took up there,” he said in reference to the technical knockout Svendsen had sustained. “She’s got a right to a hearing if she disagrees with the suspension. I left it open so that if she goes into the gym and improves, she can be reinstated. There’s nothing against Caroline. She took a helluva beating around the head. If it was a man, this is the same way it would go.” 

Svendsen’s manager Ted Walker wasn’t buying it. “I would have felt better if I had been given the courtesy of being asked to testify at the hearing. The persons judging her aren’t qualified to judge. They didn’t question the fighter. She wasn’t asked down to the hearing,” he protested. “The very thing I feared all along is that these athletic commissions want to put women in the same class as men and judge their skills the same way.” 

It would be nine months before Svendsen would again appear in a boxing ring. And this time would be for the last time. Barred from fighting in Nevada, where she had made history as the first licensed female boxer in the Silver State, Caroline would travel north of the border in February 1977 to square off against Nader Rankin (identified as Judy Rankin by some sources which may possibly have confused her with the pro golfer) in Calgary, which had never before hosted a women’s bout. Caroline put Rankin down for a ten-count nap at 1:51 of the first round in their abbreviated bout at the Aslan Convention Center with a right hook that broke her opponent’s ear drum.

She was not in celebratory spirits, diminished as they were by the deaths of both her father and sister within a short span of time of one another not long before the fight. To make matters worse, Svendsen was hospitalized on September 9 after being thrown from the camel she was racing in Virginia City, fracturing her skull and leaking spinal fluid from the force of the fall. “I landed on a couple rocks and broke one of them,” she explained to a visiting reporter. “I’m feeling better but I’ll probably be in the hospital a couple more days.”  

Svendsen made a full recovery but opted to walk away from boxing to nullify the risk of permanent injury resulting from taking needless blows to the head. Her age, she admitted, was also a determining factor. After a self-imposed hiatus of a few seasons from camel racing, however, Svendsen did eventually return to competition. “Why am I still doing it?” she wondered aloud. “I don’t have any brains I guess.”   

Divorced from her third husband Frank, Caroline settled into a spacious Carson City apartment that she shared with Pookie, an 11-year-old Golden Lab/German Shepherd mix, a parrot named Alvin, and her blue-eyed Siamese cat, Charlie.

“I’m not the type to be in the public eye twenty-four hours a day. It made me very nervous,” confessed Svendsen, whose deliberately low-profile existence in the 1980s saw her go contentedly from affecting change in the boxing ring to making change in a cash register. Svendsen worked at a candy store to put herself through night classes at a community college so that she could earn her GED with an eye toward engaging in social work.        

“When you’re in the spotlight, people don’t believe you can make mistakes. You have to be perfect,” Caroline said, enjoying her hard-won privacy and anonymity. “But I’m just as human as anyone else.” 

The trailblazing Caroline Ella Svendsen, sometimes referred to as ‘The First Lady of Boxing,’ passed away on June 24, 2016 at the age of 77. 

  

Sources: 

Dewaine Gahan. Gals Put on Gloves (Fremont Tribune, October 3, 1975)

Terri Gunkel. Former Boxer a Private Lady (Reno Gazette-Journal, January 29, 1981)

Paul McCarthy. Fighting Her Way into a New Career (Oakland Tribune, November 23, 1975)

Bob Murphy. High Heels Slugger (Fresno Bee, September 20, 1975)

Steve Sneddon. Virginia City Woman Wants to Be Pro Boxer (Reno Gazette-Journal, June 25, 1975)

Steve Sneddon. Caroline Svendsen, Foe to Make Boxing History (Nevada State Journal, September 7, 1975)

Steve Sneddon. Caroline Svendsen Scared? (Reno Gazette-Journal, September 17, 1975)

Steve Sneddon. Strategy is Simple for Svendsen’s Debut (Edwardsville Intelligencer (September 19, 1975)

Steve Sneddon. Caroline Svendsen is No Longer a Curiosity (Reno Gazette-Journal, September 20, 1975)

Steve Sneddon. First Lady of Boxing Goes Through New Experience (Reno Gazette-Journal, May 6, 1976)

Nick Thimmesch. Unisex Finally Makes it to the Boxing Ring (Spokane Spokesman-Review, September 29, 1978)

Woman Boxer Applies for Nevada License (Nevada State Journal, July 4, 1975)

Caroline Svendsen’s Fate As a Boxer Decided Today (Nevada State Journal, July 10, 1975)

Caroline Svendsen Granted Boxing License in Nevada (Nevada State Journal, July 11, 1975)

Caroline Svendsen (Detroit Free Press, August 12, 1975)

Local Sports in Brief (Reno Gazette-Journal, September 2, 1975)

Caroline Svendsen May Face Roadblock (Reno Gazette-Journal, September 5, 1975)

California Bars Svendsen (Reno Gazette-Journal, September 26, 1975)

Ali Can Rest Easy; Woman Boxer Won’t Challenge Men (Escondido Times-Advocate, October 8, 1975)

Women Get OK to Box in Portland (Wilmington News Journal, October 9, 1975)

Gal KO Victim Subs (Vancouver Columbian, October 23, 1975)

Caroline Svendsen Wins Second Professional Fight (Reno Gazette-Journal, October 24, 1975)

Boxer’s Hair Unravels, She Laughs to Shower (Omaha World-Herald, October 24, 1975)

Boxer Caroline Svendsen Wins Third Fight (Reno Gazette-Journal, November 24, 1975)

Hinke Gets Married in Virginia City (Reno Gazette-Journal, January 1, 1976)

Caroline Gets Fourth Bout (Reno Gazette Journal, May 4, 1976)

Boxer’s Bra Problem Sets Up KO (Arlington Heights Daily Herald, May 7, 1976) 

Local Sports Brief (Reno Gazette-Journal, May 17, 1976)

Caroline Given Suspension (Reno Gazette-Journal, May 21, 1976)

Ford to Continue Comeback (Calgary Herald, February 22, 1977)

Layoff Doesn’t Bother First Lady of Boxing (Reno Gazette-Journal, February 28, 1977)

Caroline Kayoed (Macon Telegraph, September 14, 1977) 

Camel Races (Reno Gazette-Journal, September 8, 1985)

Ersi Arvizu Throws a Hook (and Chorus). (Bluefat Archive, April 2008)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/197069782/caroline-ella-svendsen