Hessie Donahue, The May Queen Who Knocked Out John L. Sullivan

Boston’s 1956 May Queen was not your usual suspect. The organizers of that year’s event decided to go against the grain and coronate not an aspiring debutante or a bubbly bobbysoxer, but an elderly three-time widow from the South End who had also buried every one of her eight children. Her current husband, whom she had wed less than a year prior, was fighting what would turn out to be a losing battle with tuberculosis. Despite being temporarily hobbled by a recent automobile accident, the devoted 83-year-old, whose blue eyes still twinkled like stars in the night sky, traveled eight miles every single day to be at the bedside of her beloved Joseph at Mattapan Hospital.

“She’s always smiling. Always friendly. Always keeping the gloomy side of life to herself,” said Billy Day, spokesman for the Park Department which sponsored the parties held in honor of the Golden Age Club, of which the newly-crowned May Queen was a member. “Hessie Donahue will greet you with a million-dollar smile when she hasn’t a penny in her pocket.”

Make no mistake, Hessie Donahue was not being patronized as a charity case with a hard-luck sob story, nor would she have accepted the recognition as May Queen under such circumstances. In fact, one almost-too-good-to-be-true event in Hessie’s sensational past (though she always swore it really happened just the way she would tell it) set her apart from your average old-age pensioner, establishing Donahue as a sort of local celebrity. Earlier that same month, a panel of guests on Garry Moore’s nationally televised quiz show I’ve Got a Secret was tasked with finding out what exactly that was.

Forked-tongued satirist Henry Morgan; Jayne Meadows, a renowned actor of stage and screen whose younger sister Audrey played Alice on The Honeymooners; actor and consumer affairs advocate Betty Furness; and radio personality Bill Cullen, who would soon after become the original host of The Price Is Right, all took their best guess as to what Hessie Donahue’s secret might be. None of the panelists came within a country mile of solving the mystery, earning Hessie a nice little grand prize, not to mention bragging rights to the fact that, with a single punch, she had once laid out the great John L. Sullivan, the legendary bareknuckle-turned-Marquess of Queensbury heavyweight boxing champion who enjoyed boasting that “I can lick any son of a bitch in the house.”

“Poor John L. would shake, rattle, and roll in his grave right now, if he ever knew I went on television and told the entire nation about that knockout,” laughed Donahue. “But he was good-natured. I’m sure he would have forgiven me once he found out it meant a trip to New York for me, and $80 in the bargain.”

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1873, Hessie Donahue married Charles Converse shortly after turning eighteen. Converse ran a boxing academy out of a Worcester gymnasium which was frequented by then-heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan, a resident of the Commonwealth who was often referred to as the Boston Strong Boy. Charles and John L. were close acquaintances as well as sparring partners. Even before marrying Charles, Hessie herself spent a good deal of time at the training school where she would meticulously study the hopeful pugilists. She absorbed so much knowledge that Converse would often ask her to tutor certain fighters whose mechanics were in need of correction.

“Sometimes, strictly for fun, I’d get into the ring with Charles and we’d box a couple of rounds together,” recounted Donahue. “I was a powerful woman and my husband never tried to hit me hard, so I was in no danger. Sullivan got quite a kick out of watching us together.” So much so that The Great John L. asked them to barnstorm the country with him, staging boxing exhibitions as members of his theatrical touring company. This offer came at just the right time for the cash-strapped couple. Money was stretched so thin in their household that Converse could no longer afford to fund his academy and was forced to close its doors. As you can well imagine, life on the road with John L. Sullivan was never a dull affair.

“We were in Providence one time when he was still champion. There was quite a crowd so John decided to see if he could twist a horse over on its side,” Hessie remembered. “The particular horse he chose was a small one, but it was hitched to a wagon loaded with apples. Well, John got the horse around the neck and sent it over on its side. The wagon went with it and the apples were all over the street. John started gathering them up and as he did the young Italian who owned the horse and wagon appeared. The Italian was angry, but he didn’t remain that way long. As soon as John would pick up an apple somebody would want to buy it. The Italian ended up selling his apples at 10 cents apiece, a good price even today.”

During each evening’s performance, Charles would take the stage to put on a punching bag demonstration before a packed house and occasionally engage in some low-impact fisticuffs with Sullivan. “I don’t know who thought of the idea of my sparring with John L. I can’t recall,” Hessie stated. “I do remember Sullivan thought it would be quite an attraction. It was a chance to make $15 for a few minutes’ work, so I didn’t mind. That was good money in those days. We worked out quite an act together. The audiences really loved it.”

Cash prizes were offered to anyone foolhardy enough to think himself equal to the challenge of overpowering Sullivan. Needless to say, no money ever changed hands. Most nights, John L. made quick work of dispatching these poor deluded souls. Some nights, there might be no intrepid takers at all. Either way, this was Hessie’s cue to jump into action.

“The announcer would shout, ‘And now we have a woman who has volunteered to fight John L. Sullivan!’” she said retrospectively. “I’d come out wearing a blouse, skirt, bloomers, long stockings, and my boxing gloves.” Sullivan had a fifty-pound advantage over Donahue, who remembers weighing approximately 145 at the time. Nevertheless, she would have her way with John L. throughout these spirited but staged exhibitions, all to the howling delight of the standing-room-only spectators.

“The audience would roar. Sullivan would let me punch him all over the ring. It may seem silly now, but everyone enjoyed it in those days,” Donahue recalled in a 1956 interview. “At the end of round three I’d hit Sullivan and he’d go down. It was all an act. I’d put my foot on his chest. The referee would hold my hand up and say I was the new champion. John would bounce up laughing,” elaborated Hessie. “He got as big a laugh out of it as the audience did.” One night in 1893, however, the narrative went off-script during a stop in Arkansas, necessitating an improvised bit of business which would ultimately place Hessie Donahue’s name in the history books.

“It was in the third round,” as Hessie remembered it. “John hit me in the face. It was a hard blow and hurt. I became very angry at him. After he hit me, John was off-balance for a second. He was always awkward. I swung back at him in anger with a right hand and hit him flush on the jaw. He went down. Yes, John L. was out for about a minute, no doubt about that.”

Although stunned by this shocking turn of events, the quick-thinking referee proceeded with their usual worked-out finish, giving Sullivan time to gradually regain consciousness. “You should have heard the words he muttered to me when he got up. I wouldn’t dare repeat them,” Hessie recalled sheepishly. The incident may have evoked an immediately belligerent reaction from Sullivan, but the hard feelings dissipated rather quickly. “John didn’t remain mad long. He was too good-natured,” insisted Donahue. “He knew it was an accident. We resumed our boxing act together a few days later.”

Despite the fact that Charles Converse died in 1899, Hessie’s theatrical career continued for another four years, until she remarried and settled into a contented, less transient life in South Boston with her second husband, Fred Proctor. During her heyday, however, she rubbed elbows with some of the most notable personalities of the day and was not shy about sharing her honest opinions about them.

Of Buffalo Bill Cody, Hessie remarked, “He was a peacock. He spent so much time in front of the mirror preening himself, I wonder if he ever had time enough left to shoot a buffalo.” Annie Oakley, said Hessie, “dressed like a man in those Wild West britches and could shoot a hole in a playing card from several yards away. She should have worn dresses and tried to act daintily. Buffalo Bill was prettier than she was.” Lillian Russell, a well-known singer and stage actor who made headlines for her beautiful soprano voice and ribald lifestyle in equal measure, “owes most of her fame to the fact that she had a good corset and was able to stuff herself inside it,” joked Donahue.

Incidentally, John L. Sullivan was not the only boxer with whom Hessie traded blows. She had also gone toe-to-toe with the likes of Sam Langford, George Dixon, Stanley Ketchel, and ‘Gentleman’ Jim Corbett. Hessie retained fond memories of these celebrated sparring partners, with the exception of Corbett who Donahue recalls not being quite as chivalrous as his ring moniker would have you believe. “He didn’t want to seem to hold his punch. Once he got inside the ring he automatically started punching away—no matter who was in there with him,” Hessie commented about Corbett. “He was conceited too. I wanted to go on the stage with him, but he wanted our bout to end in a draw. He didn’t want to have it said that he lost to a woman, even as a joke.”

Asked whether she thought Corbett could hold his own against the top heavyweights of the modern era, Hessie stated, “Corbett was a stylish boxer and Joe Louis would have done a number on him. Marciano would have probably put up a good fight against Corbett, but I wouldn’t want to guess the winner.” As far as John L. was concerned, Donahue swore that Sullivan would have “pulverized Rocky Marciano and beaten Joe Louis in a good fight.” Generally speaking, she had a fairly dim view of the work ethic maintained by contemporary boxers. “Most of them look like dancing students,” she opined with a dash of acerbic wit thrown in for good measure. “Sometimes I think they’re going to kiss each other at the end of the fight.”

Hessie’s second marriage came to an untimely end after one decade, upon the death of Fred Proctor in 1913, and she next tied the knot with Arnold Wanner four years later. Having first lost his sight, Wanner lived until 1952 and, in 1955, the 82-year-old Hessie then met Joseph Donahue who would become her fourth and final husband. “I realize it was a little late in life for both of us to get married,” Hessie admitted, “but we wanted the companionship.” Sadly, they would both be robbed of that companionship after only one year when Joseph succumbed to tuberculosis.

Before that, though, was Hessie’s coronation as Boston’s 1956 May Queen at the Vine St. Auditorium in Roxbury before a party of 200 attendees. She received a dozen roses from Mayor John Hynes and a promise from the Boston Housing Authority to secure her a first-floor apartment in one of the new South Boston developments to make street level access less of a burden for her. Hessie was also treated to a radio, a supply of food, new clothing with complimentary laundry services, a beauty parlor appointment, kitchen appliances, a sitting with an artist who would paint her portrait, and an invitation to live it up at a local nightspot called Binstrub’s Village. “And to think it all came about because I knocked out John L. Sullivan 63 years ago,” mused Hessie.

The following year, Donahue was asked to attend the 9th annual reunion dinner hosted by the Old Time Boxers Association of Lancaster, Pennsylvania which was held in the ballroom of the Hotel Brunswick. The recent loss of her husband John and the lingering effects of her car crash more than a year and a half earlier notwithstanding, Hessie made the trip to Pennsylvania. “I should have broke my neck, but I only broke both my legs,” she boasted to the congregates regarding her injuries. Hessie had the opportunity to mingle with dozens of retired participants of the fight game, headliners and curtain raisers alike. Lew Tendler, Paul Berlenbach, and boxing columnist Barney Nagler were there as well as Jack and Joe McCarran, Izzy Schwartz, and Frankie Ritchie, to name a select few. “It’s nice to be alive and hear the nice things said about you,” enthused guest of honor Barney Ross. The three-division world champion illustrated his point quite nicely and succinctly by saying, “Too often it’s ‘he was a nice guy’ after you’re dead.”

Hessie Donahue died in 1961 at the age of 88, but not before she related the story of one last memorable encounter with John L. Sullivan outside Boston’s transit hub called South Station that occurred just before her first husband, Charles Converse, passed away. “There was a big crowd, so John L. decided to scale the new stone wall on the side of South Station to show off,” Hessie recounted. “He got a good way up when I shouted, ‘If you had a tail, you’d make a pretty good monkey’ at him. He broke into laughter and you could hear him roaring as he slid down the side of the building uninjured. Another man would have broken his neck.”

Donahue also remembered him as someone who may have been rough and tumble but was a soft touch when it came to youngsters. Later in life, she never forgot how much John L. loved children and “cried like a baby when my 10-months-old Lillian died.”

Clearly enchanted by Sullivan, Hessie raved, “He was a big showoff, but the people loved him. There were no movies, radios, television, or things of that sort. A man like John L. was important to people. He was a hero,” she proclaimed with a sense of pride. “Why, men used to pay money to sit in the barber chair he used. When he was in shape, John L. Sullivan could really whip any man in the house.”

There was that one night in Arkansas, though, when The Great John L. was knocked out cold as a corpse by a future May Queen.

Sources:

Richard O’Donnell. The South Boston Woman Who Knocked Out John L. Sullivan (The Boston Globe, March 18, 1956)

Richard O’Donnell. Boston’s Hessie Donahue KO’s Video Secret Panel (The Boston Globe, May 3, 1956)

Richard O’Donnell. Hessie’s Greatest Thrill: Hub to Crown May Queen, 83 (The Boston Globe, May 25, 1956)

Joe Wachtman. Gill, Buch, Loechner, Murphy Honored By Old Time Boxers (Intelligencer Journal, Lancaster, PA, November 7, 1957)

May Queen (The Boston Globe, May 25, 1956)

Hessie Donahue Reigns as Boston’s Queen of May (The Boston Globe, June 1, 1956)

…Then There Was The Lady Who KO’d John L. (Carlsbad Current-Argus, May 20, 1973)

Lady Tyger’s Tale

My Lord, What a Morning

“They will love you and hate you for being black, white, fat, thin, a boxer. Can’t worry about what people say,” Marian Trimiar reflected more than twenty years after embarking on a life-changing journey as a female prizefighter who adopted the alter ego of Lady Tyger. “I was world lightweight champion in 1979. It was the legal stuff that wore me down, but I did love the one on one. I just wanted to box, not go to court.” As a means to an end, however, to do one she was required to do the other.

A black woman competing in a sport dominated and regulated by predominately white males, Tyger had two imposing obstacles to leap over in her quest for respect and legitimacy. “I slept, ate, ran boxing. It didn’t give me nothing back,” Trimiar lamented retrospectively. “You don’t realize the prejudice out there. Of all the -isms, and I know them all, sexism is the worst.”

Growing up in East Harlem’s James Weldon Johnson housing projects, ten-year-old Marian was already keenly aware of at least some of those -isms. She would watch Muhammad Ali fight on TV with her father and then they would shadowbox together. Dreaming that maybe boxing could be her “vehicle out of the ghetto,” she mustered up the courage to tell people about her ambition to become a professional fighter one day, only for many of them to laugh at her. The Tyger had been pulled by the tail, and not for the last time. Far from it.

The fighting spirit was inside of Trimiar from an early age. She made good use of it to send a very clear message to the class clown who messed with the wrong person on the wrong day. “We were in school, and at the time you had to raise your hand and then stand up to answer the question,” explained Tyger. “When I raised my hand and was asked to stand up, Armando Garcia pulled the seat from under me. When I went to sit down, boom, I fell on the floor, and I hit my ear on the desk. He thought everything was funny.” Garcia wouldn’t be laughing for long. “I told him I was going to kick his ass after class,” Trimiar continued. “I beat him up so badly that the police came to my door.”

Street fights were a common occurrence throughout her childhood. Sometimes it would be to stand up to neighborhood bullies on behalf of her sister Barbara or brother Calvin. Other times it was simply a matter of survival by any means necessary, including Marian's trademark technique of scratching her adversaries so badly they looked as though they had been mauled by a tiger. Which, by the way, is how she came by the name Tyger. She spelled it with a 'y' because it was distinctive. Like her. Feminine but badass at the same time.

Fittingly for the future women’s boxing pioneer, Trimiar attended Julia Richman High School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan which was named after New York’s first female District Superintendent of Schools. However, the confines of a classroom felt like a cage to Tyger, so she threw caution to the wind and began training at the Wagner Housing Authority Center gym, run by Mickey Rosario and his wife Negra, when she wasn’t engaged with social work as part of Job Corps. To the wonder and dismay of all, she returned without hesitation after having gotten pummeled by her male sparring partner on her first day. Being deliberately worked over in the ring became standard operating procedure, and Marian knew she had no choice but to adapt or perish in this unforgiving environment.

So serious was Trimiar’s dedication to this endeavor that she made known her preference to being referred to not by Marian but by her childhood nickname and new ring moniker, Tyger. “I like Tyger. It’s me,” she proudly declared. “I always train to the tune of ‘Hold That Tiger.’” Trimiar was named after the opera and gospel singer Marian Anderson, a familial relation who had famously befriended Eleanor Roosevelt after an invitation to the White House in 1935, gave a concert at the foot of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after being denied a traditional venue by the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution), and sang the “National Anthem” at the inaugurations of both Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. Calling themselves the Singing Trimiars, Tyger and her family would carry this tradition forward by performing gospel songs and spirituals in church.

“My folks were really nervous,” Tyger remembers. “I’d come home all bruised and lumpy. But I was kind of proud of those lumps.” On one occasion, a spar mate cracked one of Trimiar’s teeth. She nonchalantly spit it out on the canvas and, without missing a beat, picked right up where she left off. Black eyes, broken teeth, personal hang-ups, and mean-spirited mockery notwithstanding, there was no question that this girl with the pretty smile and wide expressive eyes was for real and would do whatever was necessary to silence the doubters and critics. And they were legion.

(Jackie Tonawanda and Lady Tyger applying for NY State boxing licenses)

Hard Trials

This is not to suggest that Tyger was without supporters or had to go it alone. Despite their concerns, her mom, pop, and siblings were all very supportive. In preparation for her amateur debut, Trimiar had been working out seven days a week for three months, benefitting from sparring sessions with neighborhood boys, one of them being future Golden Gloves champion and world title contender Tyrone ‘The Harlem Butcher’ Jackson.

What must have looked like a stand-up-and-cheer scene being filmed for a boxing movie transpired in real life when a large group of neighborhood kids shadowed Trimiar from her tenement to the subway which would convey her to the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights where the AAU was sponsoring a show on the evening of May 1, 1974. The children followed behind, throwing punches at mailboxes and parking meters while chanting the name of their twenty-one-year-old hero who cut quite a figure in a maroon crushed velvet outfit, with hat to match, and white platform shoes. Exuberant cries of “Good luck, Tyger!” were expelled from passing cars. She humbly brushed off the idolatry by professing, “They dig me because I help them. It makes me happy to help people. That’s why I’m a happy person.”

The historic venue that hosted Trimiar’s first fight had attracted attention on a nationwide scale for all the wrong reasons nine years earlier. It was while addressing the Organization of Afro-American Unity from the stage of the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965 that Malcolm X was assassinated by rival members of the Nation of Islam. All things considered, Tyger exclaimed, “I have been dreaming of this day for two years. It’s something I really want to do. I’m serious about boxing, but people can’t believe it.”

One of those unbelievers was Metropolitan AAU Boxing Chairman Matt Cusack who disrupted the proceedings after Trimiar and her opponent—nineteen-year-old 'Killer' Diane Corum, a friend of Tyger’s from Job Corps who outweighed her by forty-nine pounds—were already situated in their respective corners. Cusack demanded that they vacate the ring until all other scheduled bouts had been contested, and it wasn’t until damn near the stroke of midnight that Tyger and 'Killer' Diane were permitted to finally exchange leather for three rounds in front of 300 mostly appreciative spectators.

Tyger wasn’t the only member of her family to get in a fight that night. Her father could not stand idly by while one unconscionably boisterous attendee shouted during Tyger and Killer Diane’s bout that “those girls should be shot” and a physical confrontation ensued. Neither that, nor the fact that no verdict was rendered that night, deterred Tyger. “I’m going to do it again,” she enthused afterwards. “I’ll go to court if I have to.”

Boasting a record of 24-1-1, future world champion Vito Antuofermo was fast ascending the middleweight rankings and gearing up for his stiffest test to date against battle-scarred veteran Denny Moyer at Madison Square Garden on September 9, 1974. The Saturday prior, Garden promoter John F.X. Condon arranged for a boxing exhibition to take place during the annual San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy with an eye toward bringing attention to Antuofermo, who was born in ‘Bel Paese’ and resided in Brooklyn.

To cap off the afternoon festivities, Condon invited Lady Tyger Trimiar to compete in a two-round exhibition against fourteen-year-old Junior Olympic lightweight champion Miles Ruane in a makeshift ring erected outside the La Bella Ferrara café on Mulberry Street. Since her fight at the Audubon Ballroom, Trimiar had significantly stepped up her training thanks to Mack Williams and Murphy Griffith, the uncle of former three-division world champion Emile Griffith who would later groom Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini among others, both of whom she worked with at the world famous Gleason’s Gym.

Before Trimiar boxed Ruane, she was given the opportunity to spar one round with Antuofermo. The photo accompanying an article in the New York Times depicts a determined Tyger, “wearing her black trunks long and loose in the manner of Archie Moore,” sticking a left jab in the face of Antuofermo who, unlike Trimiar, was wearing headgear. Tyger then engaged with “freckle-faced, red-haired” Miles Ruane in the featured attraction before a standing room only assembly of onlookers. “Right now I’m the only woman boxer and I’m trying to convince the American Olympics officials that there ought to be a girl’s boxing team,” Tyger told the sports reporter dispatched to cover the event.

Tyger was not the only woman boxer. In fact, there were plans to match her opposite a fistic peer twenty years her senior, not to mention with a forty-pound weight advantage and suspicious reputation, by the name of Jackie Tonawanda. At least that was one of the names by which she was known. Born Jean Jamison in 1933, Tonawanda also went by Jackie Garrett and, once she had imposed herself upon the boxing scene, referred to herself as ‘The Female Ali.’

Tonawanda bragged about having been shown the ropes, so to speak, by Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano and, in turn, mentored a young Lady Tyger. “I showed her what to do, but I was too heavy to box her,” Jackie claimed to New York Daily News sportswriter Bill Verigan. “I guess I’ll have to take off a lot of weight. Training is good for that. I run a couple of miles at six every morning, work out a few hours in the gym every day. I don’t know if most girls can understand that.”

Her associations with the former heavyweight champions reported in the New York papers could not be substantiated, and Tyger never had more than a few fleeting moments in Tonawanda’s presence, much less been given pointers. Jackie did get to pay a visit to her legendary namesake during Muhammad Ali’s training camp at the Concord Hotel in upstate Kiamesha Lake, New York. She was given access to the champion’s gymnasium and even got to spar with an always accommodating Ali, who was readying himself for his third fight against Ken Norton. “Ali’s hands are faster than ever,” raved Tonawanda. “His combinations were beautiful—a jet plane would do second to him.”

The bout between Tonawanda and Tyger was being proposed for November 1974, to be held at Madison Square Garden. This would have established a historic precedent for the world-renowned Mecca of Boxing, and Trimiar even went to the trouble of having custom chest protectors made for both of them. To make the fight happen, however, Trimiar and Tonawanda would first have to go through the formality of securing licenses from the New York State Athletic Commission. Much easier said than done, as it would turn out.

The two women appeared at the NYSAC offices at 270 Broadway on the morning of October 7 where they each filled out an application, paid a $5 fee, had their fingerprints taken, were sworn in by Commissioner Ralph Giordano, and underwent medical exams. “He’s not going to ask me to take off my clothes, is he? I didn’t expect that,” Tyger queried somewhat nervously. This was, after all, completely unfamiliar terrain to her. “I thought they could tell you were ok by, you know, just looking at you.”

It was expected that, after the Commission conducted their standard review process, a verdict would be rendered by early November which would allow for their Garden bout to take place, albeit on short notice. “One of my reasons for applying,” asserted Trimiar, “is to open the doors for others.” Furthermore, she added, “Men dominate boxing. It’s time for a change.”

Madison Square Garden matchmaker Teddy Brenner was obviously not of the same opinion. “Whatever you read in the newspaper is just a lot of you know what. As long as I am running boxing here, there will never be any professional women’s boxing in the Garden,” he declared without a hint of ambiguity. “If women want equal rights in boxing let them fight men and that would be ridiculous. We would never make any special provisions for women such as weight classes, etc. It’s out of the question.”

Trying to balance optimism with pragmatism, Tyger could evidently see the writing on the wall regarding her immediate future. “If they rule against us,” she mused, “the main issue will be because we’re women.” Sure enough, in a closed door meeting at the NYSAC to discuss the matter, Chairman Edwin Dooley suggested, “We should give it thought before we act on it…It is all wrong…If denied a license, they could bring an action to review our determination.” His motion was seconded by Counsel James Fusscas who said, “We should hold a public hearing for the boxing industry and any interested persons testify for or against licensing women boxers. We have a segment of the community who want boxing abolished. There are some activities that women don’t belong in.”

With the NYSAC dragging its heels for more than two months and no anticipated response forthcoming, Jackie Tonawanda filed a sex discrimination complaint in January 1975. This forced the Commission to move from procrastination to a proactive measure, and a letter of unanimous denial was sent by Chairman Dooley to both Tonawanda and Tyger. Dooley justified his official refusal by insisting that he was duty-bound to enforce Rule 205.15 which had been on the books since 1928 and stated, “No woman may be licensed as a boxer or second or licensed to compete in wrestling with men.”

When faced with a “showcase order” to defend his stance before the New York State Supreme Court, Dooley doubled down on his resolution to keep Trimiar and Tonawanda out of the prize ring. “The licensing of women as professional boxers would at once destroy the image that attracts serious boxing fans and brings professional boxing into disrepute among them,” he declared. Dooley further expressed concerns with regard to “endangering their reproductive organs and breasts,” in addition to proclaiming that “the Commission is not satisfied that there are a sufficient number of qualified women available as professional competition.”

With ‘The Female Ali’s prizefighting prospects dead in the water as far as New York was concerned, Tonawanda instead signed on for a mixed gender exhibition at Madison Square Garden on June 7, 1975. In the second of five scheduled rounds, with what was coincidentally compared to Ali’s “phantom punch” which toppled Sonny Liston in their infamous rematch, Jackie scored something of a dubious knockout of kickboxer Larry Rodania, who himself seemed to have an indistinct status among aficionados of mixed martial arts. “It didn't seem to be a very competitive match,” said Tyger, who attended the event with her mother and father. “He wasn’t very aggressive. Also, the fight was not a boxing match, so she can’t count it as if it is boxing. Just like the times I went to Japan and boxed a wrestler.” More on that later.

Around this same time, Tonawanda added to her spurious resume by alleging that she filmed a scene for the Dustin Hoffman thriller Marathon Man. Like most aspects of her personal and professional life, this cannot be verified and, thus, easily called into question. The exploits she blustered about so often, such as having as many as 34 knockouts in 36 career victories, and being offered a fight with Mike Quarry in 1976, were dismissed as a “figment of her imagination.” Trimiar clearly wasn’t buying into Tonawanda's hype.

“When we tried to work together, we couldn’t work together because it was either her way or no way. I did try very hard with her,” offered Tyger. “I don’t recall her ever talking about who she had fought, and anytime you try to start probing about it, she would shut you down.”

A few years before dying of colon cancer in 2009, Tonawanda claimed that the majority of bouts she had spoken of were exhibitions or non-sanctioned fights of the “underground” variety, although even this admission is generously open to interpretation. The only legitimate result on her professional boxing record is a February 16, 1979 six-round split decision loss to Diane ‘Dynamite’ Clark in Louisville, Kentucky. Clark, a last-minute substitute for Lillian Wells, played the role of spoiler in defeating Tonawanda for the vacant WWBA (World Women’s Boxing Association) light-heavyweight championship on the undercard of Greg Page’s pro debut. Jackie and Tyger would never stand in opposite corners of a boxing ring, but, whether Trimiar liked it or not, their shared struggle to get licensed in New York State would make their names synonymous nevertheless.

 

(Lady Tyger vs. Diane Syverson at the Olympic Auditorium)

Let Us Break Bread Together

Trimiar would have to wait until December 22, 1975 to see the dawn of her professional boxing career, and travel across the border to Canada for the purpose of scoring a four-round points win over eighteen-year-old Debra ‘Bombshell’ Babin in Gatineau, Quebec. The emblem from the robe Tyger wore into the ring that evening is part of the Smithsonian’s collection archived at the National Museum of Natural History.

Babin reportedly began fighting at the age of ten and later took to sparring with men at local gyms, developing a powerful right hand punch in the process. Seven months after fighting Trimiar, Babin was arrested in a raid conducted by Vanier and Ottawa police in connection with “the operation of a bawdy house.” The investigation stemmed from a personal ad in a local paper known as The Column offering “body rubs” and gentlemen responding to the ad being escorted to a nearby hotel. In 1979, Babin’s common-law husband, Wayne Trottier, was convicted of manslaughter following the fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old technical high school student. As to further exploits of hers in or out of the ring, the paper trail on Debra Babin unfortunately reaches a dead end at that point.

Tyger took on twenty-three-year-old Gwen Gemini (her real last name Hibbler) at the Waterbury Armory three weeks later in Connecticut’s first ever women's bout. Hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, Gemini, not unlike Lady Tyger, was a relative newcomer to the prize ring. But she was no stranger to fisticuffs, having learned to defend herself at an early age against two rambunctious older sisters and less than enlightened classmates in her recently desegregated school. One other thing they had in common was that Gwen’s family members were also gospel singers.

Trimiar and Gemini’s no-decision contest in Connecticut was controversially given the go-ahead by Boxing Commissioner Mary Heslin. “If we had it to do again, we probably wouldn’t sanction such a match,” remarked Joseph McDonough, Deputy Commissioner of the State Consumer Protection Department. “But there was nothing in our rules and regulations which forbade women from boxing, so Commissioner Heslin approved the fight.”

Former featherweight great Willie Pep had been under consideration to serve as the third man in the ring but was denied a referee’s license after a police investigation found that “he had links with persons of questionable character.” Newspaper accounts differ as to the attendance, ranging from a dismal turnout of 700 to a 3,000-capacity sellout, as well as audience reaction. Some say the women received an enthusiastic response, others report a shower of boos reflective of the female fight “driving the final nails into the coffin” on the possibility of any such future endeavors in the state of Connecticut.

“Bring on the tomatoes,” one fan allegedly yelled from ringside as wolf whistles sounded from all points of the Armory. While Trimiar and Gemini were being separated from a clinch during the bout, another spectator screamed, “Hey ref, take your hands off that chick.” Tyger and Gemini both insisted that they be taken seriously and that they were not engaging in some “gimmick, sideshow, or publicity stunt.”

Wasting little time in between, Tyger and Gemini would square off again that same month, this time at the Philadelphia Arena as a preliminary attraction to the main event between hometown middleweight sensation Willie ‘The Worm’ Monroe and Carlos Marks of Trinidad, who were likewise resuming hostilities. Trimiar and Gemini appeared together on the Mike Douglas Show alongside Rocky Graziano to promote their four-rounder, a first for women in Pennsylvania, and Tyger put in a good deal of face time with the local press leading up to fight night. “The reason it’s a grudge match,” said Trimiar, “is because she (Gemini) keeps saying that she won the (Connecticut) fight and I know that I won the fight.”

Meeting with sportswriters at Joe Frazier’s Gym, where she conducted public workouts prior to the bout, Trimiar addressed the fascination over her newly clean-shaven head. “Because it’s me,” she casually explained to the inquisitive Bob Wright of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. “Clean, unique. And, it’s very convenient.” A few years later, she would declare that “I’ve had more dates since I shaved my head. Everybody wants to know what’s under that bald head.”

Described as “articulate and pleasant,” it was suggested that Tyger was “too pretty for the ring.” One of her intended male sparring partners was overheard saying, “Man, I can’t hit her in the face.” As to her motivation behind setting out on a journey that so many others found simply unfathomable, Trimiar commented, “I am a pioneer, you see. Those who come after me will get a lot more out of this.” How true these sentiments would turn out to be.

“As far as money goes,” she continued, “I don’t think I get what I deserve. I don’t even know how much I’ll get from this fight. I won’t get what I deserve until society takes us seriously.” By her subsequent calculation, Tyger estimated that she earned as little as $300, and only as much as $1,000 for her world title fight, throughout the course of her career. It wasn’t uncommon for her to travel without a trainer to save on expenses and simply borrow one from another boxer on the night of the fight. Trimiar remembered one such occasion when, out of sheer necessity, she was forced to rely on “an old man with shaky hands” who proceeded to misplace her $60 mouthpiece.

“One day I just got fed up with being passive. Women have been passive for too long,” she told Jim Dent of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “They will take anything. They will accept anything. I don’t think people take us seriously enough. In my first bout, a couple of guys were yelling, ‘Why don’t you get back in the kitchen?’ You see, I don’t really hear that. And I want to be taken seriously.”

Unlike Gwen Gemini, Trimiar refused to comply with the State Athletic Commission’s insistence upon both competitors wearing aluminum bras under their shirts. Of course, she didn’t make this known until after the fact in an article that ran in the Philadelphia Daily News beneath the headline “It’s Ladies Day and The Worm’s Night.” It seems that Daily News sportswriter Gary Smith’s primary takeaway from the evening was his disparaging observation that “The Tyger doesn’t shave under her arms.”

Entering the arena blowing kisses to the 4,873 spectators, Tyger wiggled through the ropes and boogied backwards to the center of the ring for the formal introductions. Exhibiting both defensive prowess by bobbing and weaving as well as a potent offensive attack, Lady Tyger celebrated what would have been a clear victory, had an official verdict been given, with an Ali shuffle. Although this wasn’t Trimiar’s intention, her antics apparently did not go over too well with her opponent. “She moves around too much,” Gemini complained to the press. “These people paid to see a fight, not somebody running around.” Trimiar responded by scoffing, “She’s just jealous. That’s my personality. When I do that stuff, I’m introducing me to you.”

One exceptional person—some might even say The Greatest, he would certainly be the first to tell you he was—to whom Tyger introduced herself around this time was the man who had inspired her to want to become a boxer when she was just ten. You would think that she must have made quite an impression by brazenly walking up to Muhammad Ali at an event in New York and handing him an autographed picture of herself, but Tyger wasn’t so sure. “I didn’t ask for his (autograph),” she recalled with a self-assured modesty. “I just said, ‘Hey, this is me.’ I think he was too busy looking pretty to really notice me.” Years later, Tyger would be a frequent visitor to Ali’s home where he would often do magic tricks and she would sometimes play with his youngest daughter, holding her hands up, palms out, while little Laila put up her dukes and punched away with tiny fists.   

The next town on Trimiar’s itinerary was Portland, Maine where she would tangle with Margie ‘KO’ Dunson on February 26. Dunson’s ring moniker was accurate although, in hindsight, misguided by wishful thinking. Rather than Dunson putting her opponents away inside the distance, it was she who was the knockout victim in five of her six professional bouts, all losses. But, that was still to be determined in the next nineteen months to come.

The twenty-five-year-old Dunson, making her pugilistic debut that night in Portland, remarked, “I’m not in this bout for the money, but to have fun.” It’s doubtful that pulling a muscle in her shoulder during the third round was much fun. In fact, the injury was severe enough for her to stay on her stool, and Tyger was awarded the victory by technical knockout. “People think I’m taking my aggression out in the ring,” said Trimiar, who was referred to as ‘Black Kojak’ in the Newport Daily News writeup of the fight. “But I don’t think I am. I look at boxing as an art form.”

Incidentally, Margie Dunson developed a drinking problem later in life and was arrested and put on trial for stabbing a friend of hers by the name of John Jackson during a 2008 Super Bowl party. Charges against Dunson were dropped when Jackson appeared at the Cumberland County Courthouse in a state of obvious inebriation and was declared unfit to testify against his alleged attacker. She entered into a rehabilitation and recovery program later that year.

Lady Tyger and Margie Dunson were not the lone females on the card at the Portland Exposition Building. Gwen Gemini was on hand to fight to a three-round draw with a novice known as Cathy Davis, who will reenter the story shortly. After competing against one another in a pair of no-decision matches, Trimiar and Gemini became reacquainted on March 13 in Providence, Rhode Island with Tyger this time officially gaining the upper hand courtesy of a four-round verdict in her favor. Her winning ways would be unceremoniously halted eleven days later by Yvonne Barkley, who was given the nod at the conclusion of their five-rounder in Philadelphia, the first female decision fight in the state's history. In case you’re wondering, Yvonne is indeed the older sister of future three-division world champion Iran ‘The Blade’ Barkley. Her little brother’s protector in the mean streets of the Bronx, Yvonne kept Iran safe from the neighborhood gangs and later transitioned from fighting in the projects to fighting in the prize ring.

The Barkleys were not the only male/female fighting siblings around that time. The Kibby and Buckskin clans had already turned boxing into a family affair. Known by the ceremonial name ‘Princess Red Star,’ bestowed upon her by Mono Tribal Chief White Buffalo Man, Theresa Kibby dealt Trimiar her third consecutive defeat in a four-rounder held at the Del Norte County Fairgrounds Pavilion in Crescent City, California on July 24. Kibby’s brother Dave “rallied savagely in the final three rounds,” according to Don Terbush of The Times Standard to eke out a unanimous decision over Bonnie Necessario in the main event, after Trimiar, dressed in a two-piece velvet outfit, had been reportedly given “a thorough lesson” by ‘Princess Red Star’ earlier that evening. Suffice it to say Tyger felt otherwise. “It was one of my toughest fights,” confessed Kibby. “She hit pretty hard.”

The card, sponsored by the River’s End Boxing Club, was supposed to have taken place in the open air but had to be relocated indoors due to inclement weather. Nevertheless, another women’s bout preceded Tyger’s defeat at the hands of ‘Princess Red Star’ which saw Kibby’s sister Darlene ‘Bluebird’ Buckskin make her pro debut a successful one by easily outpointing Marsha Cruz from Stockton.

In between the losses to Kibby and Barkley, Tyger had also wound up on the wrong end of a four-round decision to roller derby sensation turned pro boxer Diane Syverson at the storied Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Three weeks after the Kibby fight, Trimiar returned to the Olympic where she avenged her prior loss to Syverson. The Olympic welcomed Tyger back on three consecutive subsequent occasions, the first being on September 30 when she forced first-time fighter Masako ‘Taka-Chan’ Takatsuki to take a mandatory eight-count in the first round en route to a unanimous decision. In addition to pulling double-duty as a cosmetics salesgirl by day and boxer by night, Takatsuki trained as many as twenty aspiring pugilists in a Tokyo gym. She was also issued a “business manager” license by the Nippon Boxing Commission which allowed her to manage fighters and promote bouts.

Trimiar closed out 1976 by earning what was called “an unpopular split decision” over Lilly Rodriguez in front of her hometown fans on December 16. This was no simple feat. One of Tyger’s eyes was swollen shut courtesy of a Rodriguez headbutt and the typically partisan Olympic crowd, in a collective state of bloodlust, yelled for more carnage. “They were all Mexican, see. They kept telling her to close my other eye, shut it up for me,” recounted Trimiar. “I’d never been in a fight with that much, uh, emotional impact before.” Tyger would outpoint Rodriguez at the Olympic once again, this time in more convincing fashion, the following February on the undercard of Bobby Chacon’s second comeback fight. She reflects fondly on her fights at the Olympic as being not only her best but most favorite.  

Shortly afterward, Tyger reunited with Gwen Gemini for a pair of 1977 bouts on the west coast—San Diego and Santa Rosa, respectively. Trimiar was not originally scheduled to fight at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa but stepped up as a last-minute substitute for Sue ‘Tiger Lilly’ Fox. Both skirmishes were won by Trimiar who continued to display her dominance over her four-time ring foe, despite the fact that she genuinely liked Gemini and hated having to fight her so often. Or at all. Gwen and Tyger had become friends around the time of their first two bouts and would travel together, room together, and party together.  

Basketball player turned boxer Kim Maybee, who had beaten Pat Pineda in California’s first ever female prizefight a year and a half earlier, was not on her A-game against Trimiar on September 26 in Stockton and Tyger eased her way to a four-round decision for her seventh consecutive victory. It would be very nearly one year to the day before she would again step between the ring ropes. Trimiar’s battles in the meantime were confined to the courtroom, as she had unfinished business with the New York State Athletic Commission to contend with.

(Jackie Tonawanda, Cathy Davis, Lady Tyger, Floyd Patterson)

 

Deep River

One of the unimpressed spectators at the 1976 bout between Lady Tyger Trimiar and Gwen Gemini at the Waterbury Armory had been Sal Algieri, who didn’t let his unkind assessment that they “didn’t know what they were doing” stop him from being tantalized by the possibilities that the burgeoning women’s boxing scene had to offer. His motives were purely self-involved and his methods suspect at best. Then again, that describes Algieri in a nutshell.

Competing at bantamweight in the early to mid-60s, Algieri managed to win only one of seven career fights and had his lights turned out four times in those half-dozen defeats. Desperate to somehow weasel his way into relevance, he took out a want ad in the Evening News out of Beacon, New York looking for an aspiring female prizefighter whose career he could guide or, more to the point, manipulate.

Enter Cathy ‘Cat’ Davis, an attractive drama student and fencer who answered Algieri’s call to arms, soon becoming the shady entrepreneur’s recruit, would-be girlfriend, and meal ticket. With Davis’ pleasing appearance, Farah Fawcett hairdo, and white complexion coupled with Algieri’s shortage of scruples and limitless capacity for embellishment or outright fabrication, they quickly became women’s boxing’s power couple. At least in the public eye. Privately, Davis was harboring a secret about her sexuality.

Cathy gained increasing visibility in the public eye thanks to dubious public relations rather than her ring skills. This is not to suggest that she lacked the ability to box competently, just that her earnest efforts were hamstrung by Algieri’s skullduggery, such as fronting a fraudulent regulatory commission, attempting to fix Davis’ fights, and having a knockout loss to Ernestine Jones somehow switched to a no-contest (to Cathy’s dismay, it’s worth pointing out). The structure of Davis’ popularity was built upon an unstable foundation but, for the time being anyway, it stood up to negligible scrutiny. At least until Jack Newfield’s scathing exposé “The Great White Hype” appeared in a November 1979 edition of The Village Voice. But first thing’s first.

Having twice applied for and been denied a boxing license by the NYSAC, first in March 1976 and then in June 1977, Davis brought a discrimination suit against the Commission which ultimately succeeded where the previous efforts of Marian Trimiar and Jackie Tonawanda had failed. New York Supreme Court Justice Nathaniel T. Helman invalidated Rule 205.15, which had been originally cited against Trimiar and Tonawanda in 1974 and ruled in favor of Cathy Davis. The NYSAC made a motion to appeal the decision but dropped the matter three months later.

Having already relocated to Los Angeles, Tyger was notified by the Commission that her presence would be required for the purpose of being granted her license to box professionally in the Empire State. But they weren’t through playing games just yet. Trimiar flew back to New York only to have the original date she was given postponed several times for no apparent reason. She was made to wait so long, in fact, that she felt compelled to get a part-time job so that she could ease the financial burden on her Mom, who had been sheltering and feeding her the entire time.   

Lady Tyger, Cathy Davis, and Jackie Tonawanda were finally summoned to the offices of the New York State Athletic Commission on September 19, 1978. It was a momentous day, albeit tarnished for Trimiar and Tonawanda when Davis’ license was the first to be issued despite the fact that they had both applied four years prior. Although all three women were pictured together holding up their new wallet-sized photo ID cards, the press made only cursory reference to Tyger and Tonawanda, instead gushing over Cathy Davis and her supposed record of 16-0 with 15 knockouts. Not only that, but it would be Davis and neither of her African American peers who was the subject of a photo spread in People magazine and featured on the cover of The Ring’s August 1978 issue, the first time a woman had been pictured on the front of boxing’s Bible which had, to that point, been openly hostile when covering female fighters.

“I challenge the Cat to fight right here and now,” Tyger shouted in the Commission’s offices with flashbulbs popping and beat writers scribbling. Davis spat back that Trimiar would have to learn how to box first, prompting Tyger to reply, “The Cat’s been ducking me for a long time—Meow! Meow! I’m going to get her soon.” Sal Algieri couldn’t help but insinuate himself into the proceedings, stepping between Davis and Trimiar before ushering Cat off the premises while vowing, “She’ll never fight her. She’s no fighter.”

While the members of the press were operating under the assumption that they were being treated to a bit of pantomime for their benefit, they were later assured that there was genuine animosity between Trimiar and Davis, the fuse for which had been ignited by Davis being given her license ahead of Tyger and Tonawanda. Cat and Tyger reunited during the filming of the 2023 documentary Right To Fight and have kept in touch since, whatever ill feelings that once existed having been left in the past where they belong. Davis has confessed that she always felt badly about being the beneficiary of what she admits was “white privilege.”

True to Algieri’s word, Davis and Trimiar never did face off inside the squared circle. The possibility of fighting Tyger was presented to Davis when she was notified that her original opponent, Cathy Russo, would be a no-show for their Valentine’s Day bout at the Westchester County Center in 1979, but Algieri declined the offer. In fact, for all the hard-fought effort to get licensed in New York, Tyger would curiously go her entire career without ever once competing professionally there, instead tussling regularly in or around her new hometown of Los Angeles.

This was evidently just as well in the opinion of Floyd Patterson, who appears bemused at best in the photo accompanying an article in the New York News World that shows the newly-licensed Trimiar by his side, smiling in apparent admiration. “I’m still against it. I think women should be involved in boxing, but not in the ring,” maintained Patterson, the two-time heavyweight champion and then-NYSAC Commissioner who had appointed Eva Shain to be the first female to judge a heavyweight title fight, the 1977 showdown between Muhammad Ali and Earnie Shavers at Madison Square Garden. “I just can’t see a woman lying on the floor, bleeding from the nose or mouth or a big gash over her eye. I hold women on a pedestal because they’re feminine.”

It goes without saying that Lady Tyger held a dissenting point of view which stood in bold defiance to that of Floyd Patterson. “I don’t fight, I box. I’m an athlete and this is my sport. You can be a lady and an athlete too,” Tyger proclaimed. “Mostly I’m for equal rights for people. I think anybody should be able to do anything they’re able to do. As a girl, I haven’t been able to get all the exposure and experience guys get boxing (in the) amateurs. But I think when it comes to where we can get the same background, you’ll find a lady can do the job just as well as a man.”

 

Plenty Good Room

A mere three days after walking out of the NYSAC offices with her freshly-minted license and a rivalry with Cat Davis that would go unresolved for 45 years, Tyger found herself in the Virgin Islands. Not for a celebratory vacation, but a fight against a rookie by the name of Anna Pascal at Lionel Roberts Stadium in Charlotte Amalie. Trimiar’s six-round unanimous decision win was her eighth in a row and would be her only fight of 1978 after already having gone almost a full calendar year since her last.

Following a five-month layoff, Trimiar had to switch gears and get ring-ready for her next bout which would be the featured attraction on a history-making evening in California. The first ever all-women’s boxing card was staged at the Hawthorne Memorial Center on February 11, 1979 with Lady Tyger stepping beneath the spotlight in the main event to duke it out with Carlotta Lee, a graduate from the University of Houston and registered nurse who had been inspired to take up boxing after attending one of Trimiar’s fights at the Olympic Auditorium.

“I think that it’s nice for females to get out and do different things. They have the abilities just like men,” Carlotta said. “To me, boxing is a sport. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. You have to use your mind just like a lawyer or a secretary on a job. A secretary uses her typewriter, I use my hands.”

Sponsored by Sammy Sanders’ Western Promotions, the event drew a handful of noteworthy attendees. Among those sitting ringside were Las Vegas-based WWBA (Women’s World Boxing Association) bantamweight champion Karen Bennett, Sonny Liston’s former trainer Paul Kurlytis, organizer and women’s boxing advocate Johnny Dubliss, fight promoter Eric Westlake, and Boxing News correspondent George Luckman.

In the Hawthorne curtain raiser, ‘Zebra Girl’ Shirley Tucker, who would soon after take on the California State Athletic Commission with an assist from the ACLU in a winning battle to lift the restriction on the amount of rounds women could box, was likewise successful in her encounter with Toni Lear Rodriguez in a five-rounder. Wearing her trademark zebra-striped trunks, Tucker coasted to a unanimous decision. Dulce Lucas, a Puerto Rican welterweight fighting out of LA's Hoover Street and Main Street gyms, stopped Valerie Ganther in the second of five scheduled rounds, after which Cora Webber and Lily ‘Squeaky’ Bayardo dueled to a five-round stalemate in an action-packed super-featherweight scrap. Lady Tyger closed the show by going the full distance with Carlotta Lee in a give and take confrontation which ended with Trimiar’s arm raised in victory after grinding out a six-round decision.

“I accomplished what I set out to do, to prove that ladies do not need the support of men on the same card,” boasted Sammy Sanders, the Hawthorne show’s promoter who had fought as a middleweight from 1952-53, going 11-7-3 over the course of twenty-one bouts. “The so-called weaker sex can stand on their own.” The event, which was recorded for a television broadcast (a three-minute-long highlight clip of the Lady Tyger/Carlotta Lee fight is available to view on Sue Fox’s WBAN YouTube channel), was advertised as a set of elimination matches to determine contenders for WBB (Women’s Boxing Board) championships. Sure enough, Trimiar would invite Sue ‘KO’ Carlson into the Tyger’s lair the very next month to go toe-to-toe for her chance to become the world’s lightweight titleholder.

Born in Brainerd, Minnesota, twenty-one-year-old Sue Carlson stood five-foot-nine, a three-inch advantage on Trimiar, and had worked as a waitress while majoring in journalism at the University of Minnesota when she was approached by former Air Force heavyweight champion Bill Paul to take up prizefighting. Tyger emerged victorious from their March 31 title fight at a combination ballroom/bingo parlor called Randy’s Rodeo in San Antonio, Texas with a clean sweep of the judges’ scorecards after ten rounds and was declared the Women’s World Lightweight Champion.

Despite the fact that Trimiar collected a mere $1,000 purse and a trophy in lieu of a coveted championship belt, she happily exited the ring to a triumphant chorus of “Tyger! Tyger! Tyger!” being screamed by the enchanted spectators. Like the piece of her robe worn during her pro debut, the gloves from this championship fight were donated by Trimiar to the Smithsonian.

Speaking of which, the nation’s capital would be the next stop on Tyger’s travels in what was turning out to be a busy and fruitful year. Appearing on a boxing card organized to benefit D.C. public school athletic programs, Trimiar scored a second-round TKO of Toni Harris at the Starplex Armory. “I’m not a weirdo or anything. I’m just a woman who likes boxing. What’s the big deal?” she asked Lynn Darling of the Washington Post. “It’s more than just boxing. It’s learning about money and managers, and promoters who rip you off. It’s making me more feminine. It’s making me mature,” elaborated Trimiar. “I’m just a woman into her own thing. All my life I’ve wanted to be different, unique, one of a kind.”

On July 16, 1979, the first sanctioned women’s bout in New York State finally occurred, nearly ten months after Tyger Trimiar, Cathy Davis, and Jackie Tonawanda were all legally licensed to fight by the Commission. Ironically, none of the three were involved. Instead, a twenty-one-year-old mother of two from Newark, New Jersey named Gladys ‘Bam’ Smith outlasted Toni ‘Leatherneck’ Tucker, a native of Brooklyn who practiced martial arts and headed up a subway patrol group called the Magnificent 13, to capture a unanimous decision in their six-round middleweight fight and take home a small trophy as a keepsake to commemorate the occasion.

Tyger, meanwhile, notched her second straight stoppage on another all-female fight card in California, this time at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Fashionably decked out in tiger-striped shorts and a black mouthpiece, Trimiar floored Ernestine Jones in the second round and her fallen adversary had apparently had enough, surrendering with no further effort to fight back. Trimiar extended her knockout streak to three in a row when she returned to the Virgin Islands on October 19 to put newcomer Margo Walls away in the closing stanza of their eight-round tussle.

Tyger made the rounds of the talk show circuit and was featured in a segment of the primetime TV newsmagazine show Real People along with bantamweight champion Graciela Casillas, the first woman to win world titles in both kickboxing and boxing. After a sit-down interview with Sarah Purcell at a downtown LA eatery called Julie’s, Tyger and Grace geared up and showed off their ring skills for the cameras at the Olympic Gym. In response to being worked over and sent to the canvas by a right hand to the body by Tyger in a sparring session that was getting a little too spirited for her liking, Casillas reverted to her martial arts background and unleashed a spontaneous kick at Trimiar’s midsection.

Joking about her personal experiences in the dating life of a professional female boxer, Tyger told Purcell, “One day a guy was walking me home and then a lady in the building said, ‘Tyger, when’s your next fight?’ And he said, ‘Fight? Oh, you’re a boxer?’ And I never saw him again.”   

 

(Lady Tyger with sci-fi author Octavia Butler to her right)

Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen

Remarkable as 1979 was for Tyger, she would not reappear in a boxing ring until 1981, which would hardly be a banner year. Her proposed showdown with number one-ranked super-lightweight Tammy Jensen was scrapped in late April due to the fact that Caesars Tahoe in Reno, Nevada did not have a promotional license to stage a boxing event and were forced to postpone the entire all-women’s card.

Instead, Trimiar would drop a six-round decision to Cora Webber in a non-title fight on May 15 at the Circle Star Theatre in San Carlos, California. Cora and her sister Dora were the first set of identical twins to both box professionally, well before the Charlo brothers came along in recent years. Webber would later square off against several notables from the new generation of female fighters of the 1990s like Belinda Laracuente, Bonnie Canino, and Melissa Del Vale.

For refusing to accept insulting offers to defend her lightweight title which amounted to less than what she had made to win it, Tyger was relieved of her crown by the WWBA in June 1981. The organization’s official statement read, “The WWBA has of this date stripped lightweight champion Marian Lady Tyger Trimiar of her title due to the fact that she has not defended her title within the WWBA stipulated deadline.” As a result, Trimiar was demoted to number two in the rankings, replaced at the top spot by Yvonne Barkley. “Tyger will be required to compete in an elimination tournament if she wishes to regain her title,” the letter dictated in conclusion.

Frustrated by boxing politics but in need of keeping busy and making money, Tyger hopped on a plane to Tokyo in August where she would compete in a boxer vs. wrestler exhibition against Japanese phenom ‘Devil’ Masami Yoshida. Tyger prepared for several weeks at the training camp run by professional wrestling legend The Fabulous Moolah to try and become accustomed to taking bumps. Being hip-tossed and body-slammed by Devil Masami was hardly Tyger’s idea of a good time, and this particular match remains a topic of conversation she will broach only with gentle persuasion and no small measure of reluctance. There was consolation to be had in the fact that her hand was raised at the conclusion of the six-round bout and that she got to enjoy a sightseeing tour of Tokyo with her friend Manfred.

So, things weren’t all bad for Lady Tyger in 1981. In fact, she was honored along with trailblazing science fiction author Octavia Butler (Kindred, Fledgling, the Parable books) at A Salute to Black Role Models of the Greater Los Angeles Community held at the West Los Angeles Community College. The two became friends and corresponded for some time.

On September 16, Tyger traveled to Jamaica to put on a six-round exhibition with Gwen Gemini in Kingston as part of a live event that preceded the closed circuit broadcast of the Sugar Ray Leonard/Thomas Hearns fight that night. With opportunities beginning to dwindle down from little to practically nothing, a fourteen-month absence from the ring followed. Tyger would defeat Gemini one last time on November 3, 1982 in Santa Rosa, California and follow that up with a four-round exhibition in Tulsa, Oklahoma against top-ranked welterweight Vivian Gonzales.

She fought a four-round exhibition in November 1983 in Fontana, California against Pat Pineda, who became the first professionally licensed female boxer in the state of California in 1976. Besides both women being pioneers in their respective home states, this exhibition was notable for the fact that it was the first time thumbless gloves were used in a California boxing ring.

It would be sixteen months later, on March 13, 1985, before Tyger resurfaced for what would turn out to be her final fight, a second-round TKO victory in Baltimore over Diane Clark, not to be confused with Diane ‘Dynamite’ Clark who had beaten Jackie Tonawanda in 1979.    

 

In the Silence of the Secret Night

The next time Lady Tyger turns up in the papers, it is January 1987 and she is working with the Lynwood Sheriff’s Department to establish a youth athletic league in the hopes of curtailing gang activity. Trimiar was brought aboard to organize a boxercise program for six-to-eighteen year-olds. “The kids will be given a combination of physical training and self-defense including jumping rope, general exercise, punching both the speed bag and the heavy bag,” Tyger told the Los Angeles Times. “The girls will also be allowed to box competitively if they want to. Kids who learn self-defense gain self-confidence and don’t go out and fight in gangs.”

In a continuation of her commitment to mix boxing with a selfless desire to act in the service of others, Tyger was back in the news three months later. Having formed FOLT (Friends of Lady Tyger) with pugilistic contemporaries Del Pettis and Joanne Metallo, Trimiar was determined to open up an enlightening dialogue concerning the systemic misogyny present in boxing.

“Professional women boxers are exposing the myth of their nonexistence and proclaiming the facts of years of devoted training, the sacrifices they have made for boxing careers and the daily economic hardships they must face despite boasting world championship trophies,” said Tyger. “Mud wrestling and jello wrestling can get on television, but boxing can’t,” she illustrated ruefully. “Unless women can get more recognition, we will be fighting just as a novelty for the rest of our lives. There will be no future.” For a few months prior, Trimiar had deliberately gained excess weight in anticipation of a hunger strike designed to further up the ante in gaining nationwide exposure for her movement. “We’ve tried being nice,” she attested. “But nice doesn’t work.”

In a demonstration specifically meant to target rival promoters Bob Arum and Don King, Tyger and her companions protested up and down the Las Vegas Strip the weekend of the Hagler/Leonard Super Fight at Caesars Palace. Their mission involved unfurling a seven-part list of demands which consisted of calls for major network coverage, compensation from networks and promoters, equal sponsorship, promotion of boxing for women and girls as a means of self-defense, economic parity, promotion of amateur and professional boxing for women, and licensing of all qualified applicants.

Interestingly, Bob Arum had sent a letter of intent to Theresa Kibby in March 1977, offering Trimiar’s former adversary a two-fight deal worth $11,000 plus “reasonable” expenses, plus a request for rights to first refusal for a subsequent one-year contract, after Top Rank had already arranged for her to compete against Lavonne Ludian at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. Arum made a similar overture to Sue ‘Tiger Lilly’ Fox at the same time. Neither opportunity would come to fruition.

Kibby’s bout against Ludian at the Aladdin, the third between the pair and the first women’s prizefight to be nationally televised, would be the last one of her career. When the Kibby/Ludian match failed to spark public interest, Arum pulled both offers off the table and lost his taste for promoting a female boxer for quite some time. He later inked Lucia Rijker to a short-term contract, only to cut her loose before it even expired in favor of Playboy cover girl Mia St. John. Not until 2017 would he add another woman to his stable in Mikaela Mayer, with Seniesa ‘Superbad’ Estrada jumping ship from Golden Boy to join the former Olympian at Top Rank five years later until her unexpected retirement in 2024.   

Having lost nearly thirty pounds by late April, Trimiar alone remained resolute to the hunger strike while planning to picket the New York City offices of Don King on the 28th. “I don’t know how far I will go with this. I really don’t know,” confessed Tyger whose brother Calvin, a Pentecostal minister, had died while conducting his own 40 day/40 night fast. “I might just take it all the way. There are so many women with talent going to waste. They’re naïve the way I was, thinking something is going to happen. It’s hard for me to say it’s not going to.”

Don King appeared to extend an olive branch to Trimiar, who said, “I’ve sent him a list of opponents and he says he’s willing to promote a fight for me. I’ve got it on tape. There’s been some discussion that he might put me on the card of the Tyson/Spinks fight.” Needless to say, this was an empty promise and no such thing happened. Like Bob Arum, King opted out of the women’s boxing business. At least until Christy Martin came along and put dollar signs in his eyes.

What finally did happen, in London in 2012, was the criminally delinquent authorization for women boxers to compete in the Olympics, something Trimiar had strenuously advocated for since the early 1970s. High profile promoters such as Lou DiBella, Eddie Hearn, Ben Shalom, Brian Cohen, and Jake Paul (regardless of what you think of him as a hybrid influencer/boxer) prominently feature several female fighters on their rosters. Hell, even Don King, Bob Arum, and Frank Warren eventually, if begrudgingly and to the benefit of their own bottom line, acquiesced to their reluctance to sponsor female boxers.

Regardless of their ring records or celebrity status, whether it be 1990s standouts such as Christy Martin, Lucia Rijker, and Laila Ali, or today’s current crop of superstars like Katie Taylor, Claressa Shields, and Amanda Serrano, every female boxer of the modern era must acknowledge the tremendous debt of gratitude owed to the women who blazed the trails that they have been given the opportunity to tread down, Lady Tyger among the most esteemed.

“Women should not be treated as weirdos to box,” insisted Marian Trimiar, the Tyger who took the boxing establishment by the tail. “People say women have to be lesbian or crazy to box. That’s not true and it’s very unfair. They don’t say that about men.”

Trimiar was inducted into the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2016 along with Sumya Anani, Jane Couch, Elena Reid, Ann-Marie Saccurato, Giselle Salandy, Britt VanBuskirk, and Jackie Kallen. Elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2021, Lady Tyger was enshrined during Canastota’s historic trilogy weekend of 2022 (the two previous inductions were postponed due to Covid), the first ceremony in the institution’s thirty years of existence to include female honorees. Joining Tyger in the IBHOF that year were Barbara Buttrick, Christy Martin, Lucia Rijker (who was unable to attend), Laila Ali, Ann Wolfe, Holly Holm, and Regina Halmich. Not to mention nonparticipants promoter Kathy Duva and ringside physician/VADA cofounder Margaret Goodman. Controversial as the decision was, and as unhappy as it made Tyger, even Jackie Tonawanda was inducted posthumously.

Lady Tyger was in attendance at a sold-out Madison Square Garden on April 30, 2022 to witness the historic headlining bout between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, who were battling for the undisputed lightweight title, the very same division over which Trimiar once reigned supreme. “I always knew women could draw if they were only given a chance,” she remarked with obvious pride.

A freedom fighter as much as a prizefighter of indisputable renown, Lady Tyger was selected as one of the primary subjects of the 2023 documentary Right To Fight, directed by Georgina Cammalleri and also featuring Sue Fox, Cathy Davis, Pat Pineda, Squeaky Bayardo, and Lavonne Ludian.   

 

 

Sources:

Author Interviews with Lady Tyger

Lady Tyger Trimiar Career Record (supplied to author by Lady Tyger)

Bill Barros. Let’s Talk About Boxing (Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 18, 1977)

Leigh Behrens. Boxer Hungry for Recognition (Chicago Tribune, April 19, 1987)

Jane Beverly. “I Want to Open the Door for Other Girl Boxers”—Marian Tyger Trimiar (Boxing Illustrated, February 1975)

Herb Boyd. Ring Great Jackie Tonawanda, The Female Ali (New York Amsterdam News, May 7, 2020)

DeNeen L. Brown. Women’s Boxing Pioneer Fights for a Way Out of Prince George’s Homeless Shelter (Washington Post, October 19, 2013)

Peg Byron. A Woman Boxer Has Waged a Hunger Strike (UPI Archives, April 26, 1987)

John Cavanaugh. Boxing’s Fight for a Comeback (New York Times, April 10, 1977)

Peter Coutros. Missticuffs on Mulberry St. (New York Daily News, September 3, 1974)

Lynn Darling. The Lady is a Champ (Washington Post, May 24, 1979)

Jim Dent. Female Fists to Fly (Philadelphia Inquirer, January 28, 1976)

Valerie Eads. All Martial Arts Tournament—Second Edition (Black Belt, December 1975)

Gerald Eskenazi. 2 Women Boxers Ask Licenses (New York Times, October 8, 1974)

Linda Foreman. Women Fighters Cheered, Booed (Philadelphia Inquirer, January 29, 1976)

Sue Fox. There Was A Lot of Hoopla When Bridgett Riley Was Stripped of Her Bantamweight Belt...But Was She the Only One? (WBAN, 1999)

Tommy S. Galloway. Self Made Women: Margie Dunson (Photo Essay on Salt Story Archive, 2008—accessed at https://www.saltstoryarchive.org/projectview.php?id=23936)

Will Grimsley. Even Man’s Boxing Ring Invaded by Fem Libbers (The Town Talk, Alexandria, Louisiana, September 20, 1978)

Emanuella Grinberg. Los Angeles Celebrates Octavia Butler (CNN.com, March 11, 2016)

Lee Harris. Youths to Duke It Out in Bout Against Gangs (Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1987)

Jack Hawn. Chacon Knocks Out Meza in 3 (Los Angeles Times, December 17, 1976)Jack Hawn. Carlotta Hurts ‘Em, Heals ‘Em (Los Angeles Times, February 10, 1979)

L.A. Jennings. The Women Boxers Who Fought For Their Right to Be Pro (Vice Fightland, June 13, 2016)

Justinian Lane. Charge Against Ex-Boxer Dropped When Witness Shows Up Drunk (Legal Reader, January 25, 2008)

Robert Lipsyte. Boxing, For These Women, a Heavy Right Is More Powerful Than Sisterhood (New York Times, April 21, 1995)

Susan McCarver. 1976: First Ever Female Boxing Bout in Connecticut: Trimiar vs. Gemini (WBAN Historical Database, January 10, 1976)

Susan McCarver. Boxing Match: Lady Tyger Trimiar vs. Margie Dunson (WBAN Historical Database, February 26, 1976)

Susan McCarver. Carlotta Lee: Pioneer Female Boxer (WBAN Historical Database, January 30, 2013)

Dan Moffett. Give Her a Ring and She’ll Fight Like a Gentleman(Palm Beach Post, May 6, 1987)

Mary-Ann Noble. Shirley (Zebra Girl) Tucker, The Girl Who Kayoed a Commission (Boxing Illustrated, April 1979—excerpted on WBAN)

Mary-Ann Noble. Lady Tyger On Title Prowl (Boxing Illustrated, May 1979, with special thanks to Gary Luscombe)

Nancy Ross. Being a Bully: It May Be a Sign of Bad Things to Come, Psychologists Say (Detroit Free Press, May 20, 1987)

Jay Searcy. Lady Tyger, 135 Pounds, Launches a Ring Career (New York Times, May 5, 1974)

Alastair Segerdal. The Acceptable Face of Women’s Boxing (archived at WBAN, 1979)

Gary Smith. It’s Ladies Day and The Worm’s Night (Philadelphia Daily News, January 29, 1976)

George Smith. Female Boxers Help Make State History in Four- Round Bout (Hartford Courant, January 11, 1976)

Malissa Smith. A History of Women’s Boxing (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014)

Don Terbush. Kibby Rallies For Ring Win in Pro Boxing Card (Eureka Times Standard, July 25, 1976)

Don Terbush. Sideline Slants (July 28, 1976)

Bill Verigan. Fem Boxing May Bloom in Garden (New York Daily News, October 6, 1974)

Only Female Boxing Trainer in Japan (Boxing Illustrated, October 1973)

Boxing—Women’s Last Frontier (The Physician and Sports Medicine, Volume 2, Issue 12, 1974)

A Lady Boxer Makes Debut in L’il Italy (New York Daily News, September 2, 1974)

New York State Athletic Commission Minutes October 1974 (New York State Archives Digital Collections)

Two Women Apply for Pro Boxing Licenses (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, October 8, 1974)

Women Seeking Boxing Careers (Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, October 8, 1974)

Jet (November 13, 1975)

Gals Compete in Ring (Ottawa Citizen, December 10, 1975)

Women Slug It Out in Maine, and Crowd Loves It (Newport Daily News, February 27, 1976)

Bawdy House Raid Nets Three Women (Ottawa Citizen, July 23, 1976)

The Female Muhammad Ali Meets Idol (New York Times, September 26, 1976)

Del Toro Decisions Bolanos at Olympic (Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1977)

Top Rank Letter to Theresa Kibby (March 16, 1977—accessed at WBAN)

Knuckle Sandwiches Are Their Specialty (The Vancouver Province, September 20, 1978)

Woman Given License (Casper Star-Tribune, September 20, 1978)

Females Enter Boxing (Tyler Morning Telegraph, September 20, 1978)

Cat Scratches (New York Daily News, February 14, 1979)

Clark Dispatches Tonawanda (Louisville Courier-Journal, February 17, 1979)

Murder Trial Cut Off by Admission of Manslaughter (Ottawa Citizen, May 3, 1979)

Lady Boxers Debut in NY, ‘Bam’ Smith Wins Decision (Jet, August 23, 1979)

Boxing Card Postponed (Reno Gazette-Journal, April 23, 1981) Women to Box at Tahoe (Reno Gazette-Journal, May 1, 1981) Alive and Well in LA (Palm Beach Post, November 20, 1987)

Former Boxing Champ Goes on Trial for Assault (Portland AP, January 24, 2008)

Real People: Women Boxers (YouTube—uploaded May 25, 2018—accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGWfqO06X2I)

Lady Tyger Profile and Interview with Sue Fox (WBAN)

Sue ‘KO’ Carlson Profile (WBAN)

Theresa Kibby Profile (WBAN)

Boxing News From the U.S.A. (WBAN)