No Doubt About It, Kim Maybee Made a Little Bit of Boxing History in the 1970s

In a few days’ time, Kim Maybee would be making her professional boxing debut. More than that, she would be making history as a participant in the first ever female fight in California. If she was at all nervous, the casual demeanor of this gregarious eighteen-year-old Cal State freshman in a back office of the Main Street Gym betrayed no hint of it whatsoever.

Maybee, a vegetarian and big believer in herbal remedies, chewed on a piece of ginseng root while lounging around on a couch. As sportswriters and photographers hastily came and went throughout the course of this media event orchestrated by promoter Don Fraser, Kim plucked away at a kalimba—a wooden African instrument sometimes referred to as a “thumb piano”—as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “Hey, I’ve fought so many times since I was a little kid, it’s ridiculous,” Maybee remarked nonchalantly.   

And this momentous fight was not taking place at some obscure little athletic club, mind you. Her 1976 bout against Pat Pineda was featured on the undercard of a show being headlined by Danny ‘Little Red’ Lopez, who at the time was just two fights and a little less than six months away from winning the world featherweight title, at the Forum in Inglewood, California.

Whether or not she was willing to admit it, the fact that the “Fabulous Forum” played host to the Los Angeles Lakers must have been of special significance to Maybee. Standing just shy of six-foot-two, Kim had been a standout on her junior high and high school basketball teams. While training for the April 28 fight mostly in her Hollywood backyard, many mornings she would sneak away to Beverly Hills High School where she would shoot hoops with Marques Johnson and Richard Washington of the UCLA Bruins.

Multi-faceted in her natural athleticism, Kim also had an avid interest in football and, come Autumn, planned to try out for the Los Angeles-based professional female squad called the Dandelions. Boxing was something she gravitated towards almost incidentally.

The youngest of eight siblings, not to mention the only girl among the Maybee brood, Kim was often used as a “punching bag” by her older brothers, all of whom lifted weights, played basketball, and boxed recreationally. Maybee developed a sizable chip on her shoulder at quite an early age and dared her classmates to try and knock it off, provoking them with insults she learned from the “dirty books” she somehow managed to get a hold of. “I’d call them ‘libidinous’ or something,” Kim laughed, “and they’d take a swing at me.”

Every one of these altercations ended in Maybee’s favor, earning her a “big-headed” self-assurance and a reputation to go with her unchecked aggression, referred to as “queen of the school” in junior high by her intimidated or just plain terrified peers. “People were patting me on the back, buying me lunch,” she boasted. “I would step in front of the lunch line in the cafeteria and people would move. Everybody was at my feet.”  

They always say to pick on someone your own size and, sure enough, Kim’s superiority was put to the test one day when she was challenged to a fight by a girl as big and broad as she was. After school, they faced off in the parking lot of a local gas station. Despite admitting to being “scared to death,” Maybee let the other girl throw the first punch. Kim easily ducked beneath the errant swing and hit the girl in the stomach. With the wind knocked out of her adversary, Kim proceeded to grab her by the hair. Bending her leg at about a 60-degree angle, she drove the girl’s head face-first into her knee. Just like that, the fight was over. Not that it turned out to be much of a fight after all. “Man, I love to break the nose and jam it into the brain,” Kim exclaimed. “That’s the sure-fire way.”

In an effort to steer Kim onto a path she felt was more suitable for a proper young lady, Maybee’s grandmother enrolled her in modeling school. As you might imagine, this didn’t sit well with the fast-talking, fist-swinging teenager who already had her mind made up to pursue athletic endeavors. “My grandmother said if I wasn’t careful, people would say I was gay. But I’m a different person about sports.” Maybee declared in no uncertain terms. “Man, it’s about the sport. Not about being feminine or masculine, but being about the sport.”

Not that you would know it judging by the calm, cool composure with which she carried herself like a seasoned pro who had been there, done that several dozen times over, but all of this attention being lavished upon her by the press was brand new to Kim Maybee. The same was not true of her opponent, whose name and picture had been in the paper on plenty of occasions prior to this.

A twenty-year-old divorced mother of two, Pat Pineda emerged as the star pupil of the boxing gym called the Locker Club run by Dee Knuckles at the San Pedro Harbor View House.

Before we go any further, let’s address Dee’s last name which could easily be mistaken for a self-applied moniker born of a cheap gimmick to drum up publicity. But not so. Knuckles was her honest-to-goodness, legally-binding married name. The matronly nurse turned boxing trainer was fond of saying how she didn’t make the name up, she married into it.

Although the obstinate Pineda constantly locked horns with Knuckles, she moved to the head of the class and became a mentor to many of the young girls who passed through the doors of the roach-infested little gym with rusted-out lockers and a practice ring that had a soiled canvas which seemed to have the springy consistency of a well-worn mattress.

Contained within a home for wayward youths, Dee’s humble establishment seemed to be the primary target for multiple instances of thievery and vandalism, as well as one case of arson. Knuckles believed this to be the handiwork of ne’er-do-wells looking to send a deliberate message that female boxing was unwelcome. Because the Harbor View House was located in a particularly rough area of San Pedro, the local cops were dismissive of her theory.

Taking all of these factors under consideration, Dee Knuckles had received nationwide media coverage and would parlay her recognition into helping Pineda make a successful bid to become the first woman to obtain a California State boxing license in January 1976. “My ring name is Liberation,” stated Pineda after getting the green light from the State Athletic Commission.     

While she waited for an opportunity to fight in her home state, Pineda took her first bout at the Sahara Hotel on Lake Tahoe in Nevada on March 18. It was reported that Pineda’s take home pay was a measly $50 for dropping a four-round decision to Theresa Kibby, otherwise known by her indigenous name ‘Princess Red Star.’ She admitted to being “petrified in the ring” but also angered by the Native American war cries emanating from the audience in support of Kibby, due to Pat’s being “part Spanish and part Indian.”

Shortly afterwards, Kim Maybee would be granted her license by the CSAC and become the “suitable opponent” the press were openly dubious would materialize to square off against Pat Pineda. Predictably, before the first punch was even thrown at the Forum, the first women’s bout in the state’s history was ridiculed by some as a “carnival.” Others, while less harsh in their criticism, were still skeptical.

”Maybee and Pineda are hesitant,” opined commission inspector George Johnson. “They’re not mean enough.” He had supervised the screening process for both female fighters, in addition to Diane Syverson, a third applicant already well-known as a roller derby girl whom Johnson said could “hit as hard as some men.” However, he maintained that all three had “limited ability.”

Howie Steindler, owner of the Main Street Gym where Maybee and Pineda conducted workouts and interviews prior to their fight, appeared unimpressed with their coordination. “Girls paw at each other,” he scoffed.

“We have to start somewhere. We can’t expect the same degree of proficiency as men at this stage of the game,” said CSAC executive officer Robert Turley. “But we don’t want this to become a sideshow act. We want a certain amount of dignity.” Turley confessed to having grave doubts about allowing the women to box until his thought process evolved after seeking the counsel of Althea Gibson.

The former professional golfer and tennis player who had been the first black woman to compete at Wimbledon and win the U.S. Open, was then serving as the New Jersey State Athletic Commissioner and told Turley about how her father refused to let her walk the streets of Harlem alone until she learned to defend herself. Kim Maybee’s introduction to fighting was very much the same, subjected to tough love at home so that she knew how to protect herself out in the streets. “If they jumped me, I’d jump back at them,” Maybee said of the neighborhood kids itching for a fight. “Mom said, ‘You get whipped and come home and you get whipped again.’”

“Maybe it isn’t unnatural today for girls to fight. Maybe it isn’t unladylike,” Turley reflected after his conversation with Gibson. “Girls fight. Boys fight. They fight each other. I guess our attitudes were established over the years.”

Kim Maybee had her priorities straight, that’s for sure. “You know, some girls just want to go out with a lot of guys and make a name sitting behind a typewriter,” professed Kim. “They don’t do nothing, and that’s not for me.” Maybee did admit that she considered pugilism more a means to an end rather than a passion. “It’s not that I like boxing,” she said. “But it’s something that’s there. I saw Pat on TV once and I wanted to fight her. I didn’t know she was so little, though. She looks like she comes to my kneecaps. I’ll be reaching down and she’ll be reaching up. It’s going to be weird!”

Indeed, Pineda, at five-foot-three, was just about eleven inches shorter than the supremely confident Maybee who, stretched out on the couch at the Main Street Gym, bragged to reporters about her rock-hard abs as she took out a fresh piece of ginseng to casually pop into her mouth as others might a stick of bubble gum. “It purifies the blood, man,” Kim explained. “I’m gonna be ready for this fight.”

Asked if she was concerned about her lack of boxing experience relative to that of her opponent, Maybee replied, “Pat can hit me all she wants, but I will not fall. One thing I worry about is Pat’s face. She is pretty. Wow! If I hit her—I’ve seen the aftereffects of hitting someone in the jaw,” she cautioned. “I figure one round. That’s all I need.” As it would turn out, Kim’s prediction wasn’t too far off.

Maybee did have some anxious moments at the weigh-in, however, when she nearly had to forfeit her spot on the card to Diane Syverson by coming in twelve pounds over the agreed-upon limit. She was able to sweat off five pounds in a steam room to get down to 160 while Pineda attempted to make up the difference by gorging on Chinese and Mexican food, bulking up to 154. The Commission was satisfied and allowed the matchup to proceed as planned. Syverson would have to wait her turn, though she would again cross paths with Maybee not too far down the road, and next time in a head-on collision. But, first thing’s first.   

With attendance at the Forum estimated at 7,600 spectators, Pineda and Maybee wore 10-ounce gloves and mandatory breast protectors for their history-making fight which was scheduled to go four two-minute rounds with Marty Denkin officiating. This seems to have been only the second bout to which Denkin had been assigned at the time. Upon his retirement in 2015, Denkin had refereed more than 1,500 fights—almost half of which were championship matches—and appeared on the silver screen in the familiar role of third man in the ring for Raging Bull as well as the third and fourth Rocky movies. It would be a short night at the office for Marty on April 28, 1976.

“She couldn’t take no more,” said Maybee after pummeling Pineda into submission inside of two rounds. “I wish I could have got a whole KO, not a technical one,” she lamented. Not at all unlike the schoolyard and gas station scraps Kim had instigated or gotten herself into one way or another, the outcome of her fight with Pineda was never in question.

The size differential between the two was startlingly evident, and perhaps Pineda was a bit sluggish after ingesting so much fatty food in so short a time. In the early moments of the second frame, the lanky southpaw trapped Pineda in a corner where all Pat could hope to do was ward off the barrage of incoming punches. Marty Denkin pulled Kim off a virtually defenseless Pineda and directed her to a neutral corner where Maybee celebrated with her version of the Ali shuffle. After administering a standing-eight count, Denkin issued a query to Pineda regarding whether she wanted to continue or not. Receiving a mere shake of the head by way of response, Marty waved the one-sided affair off with more than a minute remaining on the clock.

Back in the dressing room, sportswriters seemed more interested in finding out if Kim Maybee indulged in appropriately girlish extracurricular activities. “I know how to knit, but it’s a waste of time,” she retorted. “But I can cook. Now,” Kim said before excusing herself, “I want to see my friends.” As for Pineda, she had come to the conclusion after just two bouts that professional boxing was not the life for her. “That was my last fight,” she commented humbly, off to pursue a marriage to the Merchant Marine she had been dating against Dee Knuckles’ wishes.

The purse money paid to both women varies depending on which account you read. Some say they each received $250, while others reported that Pineda got as much as $400 as opposed to $350 for Maybee. Public opinion on the fight itself was mixed at best, largely uncomplimentary. At least among the male contingency.

A writeup of the bout by Omer Crane of the Fresno Bee was titled “Fight Game Bottoms Out.” A Santa Monica dentist named Joseph Rosenberg, who was in attendance at the Forum, asked, “Is this sick, or is this sick?” He answered his own question by affirming, “It’s insanely sadistic to watch two women fight.” These sentiments were shared by Georgie Jerome, a grizzled and hardened trainer who said, “Anyone who puts a woman in the ring ought to be put in jail. Women aren’t built for fighting. It’s inhuman.” 

A former boxer identified as ‘Jolting’ Johnny Smith griped, “When we went in there it was kill or be killed. Those girls were dragging it. You can’t change the rules for them. They sell fights here, and it’s a fraud if they don’t produce what they promise. Make ‘em fight proper. Let ‘em get in there and kill each other.”

Former fighter and veteran trainer Jimmy Fujimoto expressed a backhandedly appreciative viewpoint. “Hell, it’s alright with me,” he said. “They fight in bars and streets, don’t they? In my opinion it’s okay.” Stan Shioi, a fellow longtime trainer, concurred with Fujimoto. “I think it’s good. You can’t deny women the right to perform, can you?” he ventured, albeit with a caveat of sorts. “You’ve got to have gimmicks to make money, to bring in the customers.” 

“It was a terrible fight,” grumbled Don Fraser, the event’s promoter, when the topic of the Maybee/Pineda fight was brought up a few months before his 2005 induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. “It wasn’t one of my shining moments.”  

Dee Knuckles, who signed Maybee shortly after the fight at the Forum, said, “I think women’s fighting is really going to climb. Many, like Kim, learned to fight in the street. And it’s all business—they diet, do roadwork, and throw real punches—just like men.” She was of the opinion that “Kim’s the best throughout the states right now.”

Wasting little time in between, Knuckles scheduled another unprecedented fight for Maybee, this one against Margie ‘KO’ Dunson on May 12 in Honolulu, the first female bout to ever take place in Hawaii. Hailing from Portland, Maine, Dunson had gone down to defeat in her two previous fights that year—suffering a TKO loss to Lady Tyger Trimiar in her February pro debut, then dropping a unanimous decision to Gwen Gemini on April 16.

Maybee required only an extra thirty seconds or so than she did against Pineda to dispatch Dunson, and Kim would have no regrets afterwards as to the decisive nature of this knockout. Dunson did little more from the outset than employ a peek-a-boo stance in a purely defensive struggle for survival while Maybee boxed circles around her, laughing all the while. Kim deposited Dunson onto the canvas with a right hook in the second round which put her clearly overmatched opponent down for the count at the 1:36 mark.

“I thought Maybee was a pretty good fighter,” said Hawaii State Boxing Commission executive secretary Bobby Lee, who had personally approved the bout. “But Dunson couldn’t fight a lick. I thought she got hit pretty good, but I thought she could have gotten up if she wanted to.” Overall, Lee had a dim view of women’s ability to compete as prizefighters. “You can call me a male chauvinist pig if you want to,” he insisted, “but girls just aren’t built to be boxers.”

Another first was soon in store for Maybee. The city of Fresno would host its inaugural women’s boxing match on June 12 at the Wilson Theater with Kim Maybee taking on Diane Syverson. Since trading in her roller derby skates for a pair of boxing gloves earlier in the year, Syverson had dueled to a draw with Theresa Kibby in her pro debut that May and was awarded a split decision victory in their rematch. Diane’s trilogy of fights against trailblazer and future hall of famer Lady Tyger Trimiar at the Olympic Auditorium, in which Syverson was bested by a two-to-one edge, was still a few months away.

This was a tough matchup stylistically for Maybee, who was frustrated to the point of scowling throughout the fight by Syverson’s stick-and-move brand of aggression. Kim was also bothered by the repeated rabbit punches thrown by Syverson as well as referee Hank Elespuru’s seeming reluctance to take any action against Diane for these infractions. “I told you to tell her to watch it!” Maybee could be heard screaming at Elespuru. 

A wardrobe malfunction midway through the third round was a clear indication that this just wasn’t Maybee’s night. Her breast protector popped loose and needed to be dealt with. Promoter Sammy Saunders, who worked Kim’s corner for the fight, was tasked with taping it back into place. Sammy’s first effort failed to hold and the protector was again readjusted amidst a chorus of hooting, hollering, and catcalling from ringside.

With 40 seconds left in the fourth and final round, an exasperated Maybee turned her back to Syverson and retreated to her corner, refusing to engage any further. Hank Elespuru had no other choice than to initiate a ten-count which Kim ignored, resulting in a “No Mas”-type capitulation four-plus years before the infamous Leonard/Duran incident.

“Boxing won’t pay the bills. The future? I’m not going to say. I don’t know,” mused the victorious Syverson who was giving serious consideration to becoming a policewoman. “I fought the kind of fight I had to tonight. It was more slugging. My other bouts were more boxing—more skill involved.”

Former welterweight world champion Ralph Giordano, who won 122 career bouts between 1919 and 1940 under the name Young Corbett III, was present for the fight at the Wilson Theater. “Yeah, it’s sport, it’s entertaining. But the girls are still developing and they’ll come along,” he theorized with cautious optimism. “I didn’t think it would be any rougher than it was. They’re used to this kind of stuff. I don’t know if it’ll stay around, but I thought they did a pretty good job.” However, he ended by confessing, “No, I wouldn’t go out of my way to see another one—not the kind I saw tonight.”

Things would continue to go downhill from there for Maybee, culminating in an acrimonious split from Dee Knuckles in August. “I signed a four-month contract with Dee Knuckles after my first fight in Los Angeles,” she told the press. “She made a lot of promises. She’s not a good lady.”

A recent trip to Japan booked by Knuckles for Maybee to earn $500 competing in a mixed match against a female professional wrestler (whom Kim knocked out) was not all it was cracked up to be. “Dee told me we would stay in all the best hotels. In Japan, our hotel had cockroaches that were one-and-a-half inches long. And she said she’d pay my tuition at school, and give me an apartment. She has not done any of these things,” grouched Maybee who, at the time, lived platonically in a Hollywood apartment with her trainer Ali Brown.

“Kim’s young,” Knuckles responded offhandedly to Maybee's allegations. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time.”     

The final fight on record in the brief boxing career of Kim Maybee is a four-round points loss to the great Lady Tyger on September 26, 1977 in Stockton, California. What happened to her from there seems to be anybody’s guess.

Not even Sue Fox has any leads to go on. And seeing as how Sue was a pugilistic contemporary of Maybee’s in the 1970s and is now the preeminent women’s boxing historian and archivist, if she doesn’t know then good luck finding out for yourself, because that is highly unlikely.

Wherever Kim Maybee may be (sorry, I couldn’t help myself), I hope that she is alive and well, peaceful and content, yet maintains that same fighting spirit that defined who she was in her youth.

 

Sources:

Cheryl Bensten. California Has Its First Ms. Match (Los Angeles Times, April 27, 1976)

Omer Crane. Fight Game Bottoms Out (Fresno Bee, April 30, 1976)

Anthony Delano. OK—It’s a KO (London Daily Mirror, February 26, 1976)

Jim Easterwood. Boxing Tale of Tape May Take in Curves (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, May 5, 1976)

Dave Koga. Coed KOs Foe In Hawaii Bout (Pacific Daily News, May 15, 1976)

Robert Lindsey. Women Try Boxing on the Coast (New York Times, May 1, 1976)

Eddie Lopez. Women Will ‘Grace’ Ring (Fresno Bee, June 10, 1976)

Eddie Lopez. Powder-Puffers Please (Fresno Bee, June 13, 1976)

Bob MacDonald. Old Boxing Law Fades Into Past (Escondido Times-Advocate, May 4, 1976)

Ed Meagher. In This Corner…A Woman (Los Angeles Times, January 14, 1976)

Donna Sansoucy. Watch It, Men—The Women Are Ready To Fight (Torrance Daily Breeze, July 14, 1974)

Jack Stevenson. The Lady Has a Punch (Bakersfield Californian, April 29, 1976)

Dee Knuckles Interview (Torrance Daily Breeze, February 29, 1976)

Dee Knuckles, Kim Maybee Split (New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 7, 1976)

Forum Follies, The Asylum (Los Angeles Times, April 1, 1976)

Girls Learn Boxing Techniques (Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1975)

Lady Boxer Not Overly Excited (Abilene Reporter-News, April 27, 1976)

$1 Million Couldn’t Have Saved This Baby (Reno Gazette-Journal, March 1, 2005)