Julie Mullen: The 1970s ‘Girl Machine’ Who Manufactured KOs

Although she didn’t identify as a women’s-libber, power-punching welterweight Julie Mullen warned sportswriter Bill Conlin, who was preparing a feature on her for the Sacramento Bee in April 1978, “Don’t refer to me as a practitioner or a performer in the ‘Manly Art,’ because I know that’s one of your favorite expressions to describe boxing.” Conlin attempted to deflect Julie’s verbal jab by inquiring how she wished to be categorized. “Just say I’m ambitious and with a consuming desire to win the world championship and bring it to Sacramento,” Mullen countered. “I’m going for the title, and it will take somebody awfully strong to stop me.” Sporting a perfect record at the time this article was published consisting of six wins in as many months, with only two of those lasting until the final bell, it was a fool’s errand to argue with her. Julie Mullen had earned her assuredness in demonstrable fashion and in short order.

A self-defined “jock” since she was a young girl, Julie competed in track and field, softball, handball, and archery while coming of age in the old mining town of Virginia City, Nevada. Caroline Svendsen, the first woman to be granted a professional boxing license in the state of Nevada, also happened to call Virginia City home. Whether destiny or coincidence, it nevertheless set fire to Mullen’s imagination as to her own potential of becoming a prizefighter, and when Julie did decide to grab “a piece of the action,” in her own words, it would be under the guidance of Svendsen’s manager, Ted Walker.

The 20 year-old Mullen signed on the dotted line for her first fight on a card put together by renowned matchmaker Bill Dickson, who operated out of Gardnerville, to take place at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe on October 6, 1977. Julie dedicated her time not spent tending bar in Reno or pitching for a semi-pro softball team to boxing training, even benefitting from the opportunity to spar with junior-welterweight Harvey Arnold, who would be squaring off against Jose Hernandez in the ten-round main event. Phyllis Brueske, a 30 year-old “chip girl in a Gardena poker parlor” according to a newspaper writeup, was brought in by San Pedro-based boxing manager Dee Knuckles as a last-minute replacement for Julie’s original opponent, Dolly DuLove. Brueske was also a competitive runner, but there was nowhere for her to run from Mullen’s rocket launcher of a right hand which connected twice in quick succession within the first thirty seconds to put her down for the count administered by referee and former boxer Sammy Macias.

Mullen was back in action after a mere three weeks and she was intent on living up to her nickname, ‘Girl Machine,’ by making the turnaround time between her second and third fights significantly shorter than that. Forty-eight hours to be exact. First, Julie outpointed soon-to-be world junior-lightweight champion Toni Lear Rodriguez at the Carson City Community Center the day before Halloween to earn what the visiting fighter from Portland, Oregon complained was a “hometown split decision.” The 122-pound Lear wanted to prove herself so badly against the heavier Mullen that she later admitted to loading her pockets at the weigh-in to come as close to 140 as possible. “I had to take all kinds of chances,” Toni conceded. “You see, nobody in boxing had taken me seriously.” They would soon enough.

Nevada State Athletic Commission executive secretary Johnny ‘Mag’ Mangiaracina opted to waive their rule prohibiting boxers from reentering the prize ring less than three days after a four-round bout, clearing Julie to fight again November 1, this time opposite another Dee Knuckles protégé, the debuting Fonda Gayden, back at the familiar confines of the Hyatt Lake Tahoe. In his fight report, the Reno Gazette-Journal’s Steve Sneddon referred to Mullen as “the tomboy next door” who “combines an infectious girlish smile with a right hand which is almost lethal.” Like her sparring partner Phyllis Brueske before her, Gayden felt the full impact of Mullen’s hellacious right hand which detonated again and again on her chin for roughly three and a half minutes before reaching the conclusion that enough was enough and requesting that Sammy Macias stop the fight with a little less than forty seconds remaining of the second round.

“When I win, I’m happy. I’m full of happiness,” Julie told Sneddon when asked about her exuberant post-fight celebration. “When you get in the ring, you have doubts that you can win. When you hear your name announced as the winner, it’s the greatest thing that ever happened.” The fact that Ted Walker signed her to a three-year managerial contract extension earlier that evening may have also contributed to Mullen’s giddy mood.

“I know she can fight better than she has shown,” Walker commented on Mullen’s occasionally flailing offensive attack against Gayden. To demonstrate that he was in no way damning her with faint praise, Walker insisted that “what she does in the gym now is what she’s going to be doing in the ring later.” Accordingly, Julie spent more than a month working diligently with Walker to improve her technique. “In a year and a half, she’ll be the best of the welterweight girls,” enthused her manager, pleased with Mullen’s progress in curtailing some of her reckless tendencies without sacrificing her killer instinct. “She even realizes it when she hurts me in the gym,” Walker continued. “Even fighting guys in the gym, she jumps on them. She hears that oomph and she goes after them.”     

On December 6, 1977 the Hyatt Lake Tahoe would play host to yet another night of boxing. But this was no ordinary, run of the mill event. For the first time ever, more than two women’s bouts would be contested on the same card as confirmed by matchmaker Bill Dickson. For those keeping score at home, there were four. The women’s prelims would follow two curtain-raising amateur fights and precede a ten-round main event, all featuring male boxers. Squeaky Bayardo decked Karen Bennett on three occasions before their bout was halted in the fourth and final round, Toni Lear Rodriguez won on points over Baby Bear James, Shirley ‘Zebra Girl’ Tucker decisioned Fonda Gayden, and Julie Mullen notched her second consecutive stoppage (third in total) with a first-round knockout of novice Rochelle Johnson. After sending Johnson to the canvas for the second time with less than a minute elapsed, referee Curt Kinseth waved off the fight without the benefit of a count. “I knew my right hand was going to KO her,” boasted Mullen. “When I hit them with the right hand, I know I’m going to hurt them.”

Decorated amateur boxer and future world heavyweight champion Greg Page was in town to take part in the USA vs. Soviet Union Meet at the Las Vegas Hilton that weekend and sat ringside for fight night at the Hyatt. Unlike the majority of his teammates, Page was impressed by the women’s bouts and by Julie Mullen’s Sunday punch in particular. “A right hand on a girl like that. That’s something. I knew they could fight, but I didn’t know they had that much power,” said Page with Mullen standing within earshot. He then joked, “If she hit me, I would call the cops on her.”

Mullen’s January 12, 1978 scrap with Ruth Maynard, fighting out of Vancouver, Washington, was postponed when Julie came down with bronchitis and the makeup date was marked on the calendar for March 15. The setting? You guessed it, the Hyatt Lake Tahoe at Incline Village. Maynard’s only previous experience in the boxing ring was getting knocked out by Toni Lear Rodriguez back in December and she would fare no better against Mullen, preferring to remain on her stool after the third and penultimate round and have her lacerations tended to rather than come back out to absorb further punishment. She did manage to get in at least one good shot, however, according to Mullen. “She really rung my bell in that first round. It was a right hand counter that hurt me,” recounted Julie. “It shook my whole body. It made it tingle. That’s how I got this fat lip.”

Mary Kudla, a graduate student whose lifelong love of physical fitness dated back to happily performing childhood chores like milking cows on the family farm in Mosinee, Wisconsin, was next on Mullen’s agenda in the semi-windup bout at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe on April 4. Just one week earlier, Kudla had stepped in as a zero-hour substitute for Sue ‘KO’ Carlson’s originally scheduled opponent, bloodying the hometown favorite’s nose in the first stanza and capturing a four-round decision in only the second fight in Minnesota state history (Carlson had outpointed ‘Iron Maiden’ Bonnie Prestwood on January 23 at the Minneapolis Auditorium).

Mullen rocked Kudla with a pair of rights in the second round which typically signaled the beginning of the end for Julie’s adversaries, but a bloody Mary kept her composure and fought back admirably, turning the tables briefly in the third with a well-timed left hook. “That was a tough fight. That’s the first time I’ve fought somebody who really gave me a workout,” said Mullen, who indeed had her hands full fending off Kudla in a winning effort over four rounds. “She rung my bell two or three times, but I wasn’t going to give in.” This marked only the second time Julie had been taken the full distance and was described as a “wild battle” by the Nevada State Journal’s Steve Sneddon, who opined that Mullen and Kudla came close to upstaging the main event, an anticipated grudge match between super-lightweight rivals Jose Hernandez and Curtis Ramsey. A cut inside Julie’s bottom lip was severe enough to nearly require being sewn shut but not so much that it hindered her compulsive habit of chewing gum. She wouldn’t get off quite so lucky with her next medical mishap. And that one would occur not in the Hyatt Lake Tahoe ring, but in the streets of East Sacramento.  

Now ranked third by the WWBA in the welterweight division behind Dulce Lucas and Theresa ‘Princess Red Star’ Kibby and above Gwen Gemini and Sue Fox to round out the top five, Mullen decided on a change of scenery and relocated temporarily to Sacramento, intent on leveraging her record of 6-0 with 4 KOs into a title fight. In preparation, she worked out at the Sacramento PAL Gym at 3^rd and P Streets, sparring with local journeymen Babs McCarthy and ‘Pistol’ Pete Ranzany, who nearly made the 1972 Olympic squad but for a loss to eventual gold medalist Sugar Ray Seales in the semifinal round of the Trials. Like Ranzany and McCarthy, Julie was trained by Herman Carter, whose clientele at one time or another had also included the celebrated likes of Sandy Saddler, Cassius Clay, Joe Frazier, and Monroe Brooks to name a few.

Things were looking up for Mullen and she was booked for a match against newcomer Shirley Emerson of Watts as part of the July 3 Cow Pasture Boxing Festival in Gardnerville, Nevada. Fate, as it often does, had other plans. A baffling newspaper report by Bill Conlin in the July 17 edition of the Sacramento Bee stated that Julie had been hospitalized, needing 57 stitches to close wounds originating from putting her hand through the glass in a picture frame as well as an attack by a razor-wielding assailant while she was walking down the street. What the two incidents had to do with one another, if anything, how closely timewise each one occurred, and why she was evidently treated once and at the same time for both injuries are anybody’s guess. No further details were made available, other than that Mullen was fully healed and ready to take on Valerie Ganther (misidentified by Conlin as Janet Gaither) on July 22 in Truckee, California.

There was lost ground to be reclaimed, as Mullen had slipped to #5 in the welterweight rankings during her misadventures in Sacramento and it was doubtful that a four-round draw with Ganther, a 21-year-old full-contact karate competitor making her boxing debut, would help matters any. 500 fans turned out to the Tahoe-Truckee High School Surprise Stadium for the five-fight card which also featured Squeaky Bayardo winning a decision over Joann Williams. Uncharacteristic of Mullen’s fights, it was Ganther who emerged as the aggressor, landing left hooks in the first and second rounds that had Julie momentarily buzzed. Mullen managed to shake them off, but was seemingly unable to gain the upper hand until cracking Ganther with a short right hand in the final round.

Too little, too late, and Mullen was fortunate to walk away with a deadlock on the judges’ scorecards instead of an upset loss. “I was surprised. She punched harder than I thought. She’s the best puncher I’ve fought,” admitted Mullen. Nevertheless, she said of the decision, “I don’t like it. I thought I won it, maybe by a point.”

It goes without saying that Valerie Ganther and her team saw things from a different point of view. “We won the first two rounds, the third was even, and the other girl won the fourth,” stated Ganther’s manager, Hap Holloway. “The draw was my fault. I told her (Valerie) to coast in the fourth because we had the fight won.”

Mullen later confessed to being unsettled by recent events and that her focus wasn’t completely on the task at hand. “In that fight, my mental state wasn’t good,” she declared. “I was having personal problems. That was a mistake to let it bother me.”

Julie’s manager, Ted Walker, was able to find the silver lining woven through the otherwise dreary scenario. “It’s a blessing in disguise,” he said of the stalemate against Ganther. “It’s been hard to match her (Mullen). Now they’ll get off their high horses and fight us.” Walker’s optimism was put to the test when the lone challenge that had come along in the meantime, an August 5 fight against Las Vegas-based Charlene Anthony at the Spring Creek Sports Palace in Elko, Nevada, fell through at the last minute. It took an additional two and a half months, but the window of opportunity would open for Mullen in the familiar form of Toni Lear Rodriguez.     

One year to the day since their first meeting, Mullen and Rodriguez resumed hostilities for a non-title bout at the Carson City Community Center on October 30. Toni Lear had captured the vacant WWBA world junior-lightweight title back in January by beating Tansy ‘Baby Bear’ James in a rematch of their own. Mullen struggled down to 135 and still had a 13-pound advantage over Rodriguez, running her record to 2-0 against Toni Lear (7-0-1 overall) via unanimous decision despite having to shake off the cobwebs from absorbing a few flush right hands long the way. “I’m in a lot better shape now,” Julie testified afterwards. “I did my road work this time.” The ‘Girl Machine’ was confident that she had undergone the repairs necessary to set herself back on track, engines roaring and tires squealing toward a title shot looming just over the horizon. Mullen’s faith would soon be rewarded. Locally anyway.

Four women’s title fights headlined a Hyatt Lake Tahoe card on November 21, with Karen Bennett winning the world bantamweight championship courtesy of a second-round stoppage of Bonnie Prestwood in the main event. The other three female bouts would be contested for Nevada State titles. Ginate Troy was awarded the flyweight title by knocking out Laurie Ferris in the first round, and the lightweight title would go to Squeaky Bayardo, who outpointed Carlotta Lee. Lavonne Ludian, a Tahoe blackjack dealer and prizefighter who had competed against Theresa ‘Princess Red Star’ Kibby for the third time in the first women’s bout broadcast on national TV a year and a half prior, was something of an idol to Julie Mullen. Not only did Mullen put aside her hero worship of Ludian for the duration of their Nevada State welterweight championship match, she put Lavonne down on the canvas twice in the fourth round with a pair of left/right combinations and was awarded the TKO victory.     

“She is probably one of the best women fighters in the world. She had the publicity. I was just excited to fight her. I didn’t realize that I hit her that hard. I was afraid when I saw her go down,” said Julie, referring to the first knockdown when Ludian landed headfirst. “I didn’t want to hurt her. She is a real nice lady.” Even if only regional in nature, Mullen had finally attained championship status and was still hopeful that worldwide recognition as the best female welterweight in boxing was soon to follow.

Instead, Mullen found herself in Billings, Montana on April 7, 1979 to compete in that city’s inaugural women’s bout opposite Jennie O’Brien, a 34-year-old pro wrestler who was filling in for the absent Sandy Parker. Only 3,200 of the Metra Center’s 9,000 seats were occupied by fight fans witnessing this historic first and, although “the welcome in Billings for the most part, was friendly” remarked John Blanchette writing for The Billings Gazette, the women were greeted by predictably bad behavior from at least a portion of the predominantly male crowd who viewed their bout as a novelty. Some wiseguy suggested not so subtly to O’Brien during a break in the action in round one, “Get a hormone test!” Another smart aleck felt compelled to shout “Atta boy!” at Mullen whenever she pressed the advantage.

Bystanders impatient for the conclusion of the women’s scrap wouldn’t be left waiting long. The very first punch of the fight from Mullen was thrown with such authority that referee Dick Weinhold administered a standing-eight count to O’Brien. This set the tone for how the remainder of the contest played out. Two times in the next round Mullen pummeled O’Brien into the ropes, the second occasion resulting in another standing-eight from the ref. Julie deposited O’Brien onto the canvas with a right hand to the midsection in the opening moments of round three. Forty-five seconds later, it was all she wrote for O’Brien after another body blow by Mullen created an opening for a pair of vicious head shots. Dick Weinhold put a stop to the carnage at 1:10 of the third round with O’Brien laid out at his feet. “Hi, baby!” a voice in the crowd yelled to the victorious Mullen as she made her way through the arena back to the dressing room.

“There isn’t much you can say about a fight like that. It wasn’t a very good fight. She was just very easy to hit,” assessed Mullen. “I wanted it to be a good, hard six rounds for myself, for a workout. But it’s another KO for my record—that’s six now,” she tallied. “I’ve gotten a good fan following. The audience is what gets me going. If they’re good, I’ll have a good fight.”

“It’s not bad, but it’s not my sport,” confided Jennie O’Brien, whose boxing career would amount to one and done. “If people offer me money, I’ll fight. But I like wrestling better. I like the body contact and being in complete control of my body. I don’t feel that way with boxing gloves on. Plus, in the last ten years, I’ve been to Australia twice, Japan eight times, Indonesia, all over Canada. I’ve seen a lot.” 

As was customary early on for Mullen, she had already signed up for another fight to follow hot on the heels of the previous one and she would return to Nevada for what would be her seventh and final appearance at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe just five days removed from her knockout of Jennie O’Brien in Billings. Another common theme throughout Julie’s boxing odyssey was having to contend with no-shows and replacement opponents. This would be no exception.

Not much was known at the time about 18-year-old Britt VanBuskirk, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. It turns out she would be a considerable trade-up from Mullen’s originally scheduled opponent, the even more enigmatic JoJo Crummens. With only two bouts in Japan on her résumé to that point, one of which was a boxer versus kickboxer exhibition, it would have been easy to look past Britt. But it would also have been folly to do so. Looks, as they say, can be deceiving and VanBuskirk, built like the female version of Thomas Hearns with her tall, lanky frame and a right hand capable of bringing down a brick wall, may have been an unknown quantity but was not to be underestimated. Which is not to suggest that was the mindset of Mullen, whose own deadly weapon was her right hand as well. This made it a question of who could pull the trigger quicker. VanBuskirk provided the answer in the second round, putting Julie down and out with an explosive right behind her long left jab.  

Looking to rebound from suffering her first defeat, a knockout at the hands of a relative novice no less, Mullen took a confidence-building fight against a pugilistic greenhorn in Bernice Ford of Sacramento, scheduled to take place on June 16 at a makeshift 1,200-seat bleacher stadium set up in a parking lot on Yerington, Nevada’s Main Street. Ford was nowhere to be found come fight night and Julie had to settle for boxing a four-round no-decision exhibition with another newbie by the name of Judie James, who Mullen outweighed by twelve pounds.  

On September 18 at the Shy Clown Casino, located on the corner of Glendale and Rock in Sparks, Mullen was supposed to have squared off against “The Famous Rowdy Rebecca Johnson,” as advertised in the Nevada State Journal the day before. For reasons unknown, that matchup was scratched from the card and Julie would not re-enter a boxing ring again until she pounded out a six-round decision over first-timer Blanca Rodriguez in Carson City on February 18, 1980.

“I could’ve taken her out in any of the rounds, but I was rusty,” bemoaned a disappointed Mullen. Her first official fight in almost a year since being stopped by Britt VanBuskirk would also prove to be her last, and one can only speculate what became of her after this, as ‘The Girl Machine’ Julie Mullen lived from that day forward free from the scrutiny of the public eye.  

  

Sources:  

Media News Release: Boxing…Hyatt Lake Tahoe Thursday October 6, 1977 (supplied by Sue Fox)

Prelims (Sacramento Bee, October 6, 1977)

Steve Sneddon. ‘Sad Boy’ Beats Arnold at Hyatt (Nevada State Journal, October 7, 1977)

Steve Sneddon. Ramsey Upsets Arnold (Reno Gazette-Journal, October 31, 1977)

Mullen’s Fight Upstages Good Incline Main Event (Reno Gazette-Journal, November 1, 1977)

Steve Sneddon. Mullen’s Lethal Right Produces Ring Victory (Reno Gazette-Journal, November 2, 1977)

Women Boxers To Make History (Reno Gazette-Journal, November 29, 1977)

Steve Sneddon. Women Fighters Impress Top Men (Reno Gazette-Journal, December 7, 1977)

Ramsey, Hernandez Highlight Fight Card (Reno Gazette-Journal, January 12, 1978)

John Nolen. Lear—Portland’s World Boxing Champ (Oregon Journal, January 17, 1978)

Mike Blackwell. Young Robby Epps Flashes Championship Form (Reno Gazette-Journal, March 16, 1978)

Bill Henson. O’Connor Beaten Before He Climbed in Ring (Minneapolis Star, March 28, 1978)

Steve Sneddon. Hernandez Turns Puncher To Score Grudge Victory. (Nevada State Journal, April 5, 1978)

Bill Conlin. A New Welter on the Scene (Sacramento Bee, April 10, 1978)

Gardnerville July 3 Boxing Card Listed (Nevada State Journal, June 11, 1978)

Bill Conlin. Streets Make Ring Look Safe (Sacramento Bee, July 17, 1978)

Steve Sneddon. Girl Machine Mullen Settles For a Draw (Nevada State Journal, July 23, 1978)

Steve Sneddon. Inspiring Main Event on Elko Fight Card (Reno Gazette-Journal, August 4, 1978)

Steve Sneddon. Sellout Expected for Nevada Day Eve Boxing Card (Reno Gazette-Journal, October 30, 1978)

Austin Earns His Bread the Hard Way (Reno Gazette-Journal, October 31, 1978)

Women Battling for Titles (Reno Gazette-Journal, November 16, 1978)

Steve Sneddon. Hard-Punching Bennett Stops Prestwood (Nevada State Journal, November 22, 1978)

Girl Machine to Fight (Nevada State Journal, April 6, 1979)

Dave Trimmer. Castillo Does His Bit for Billings Boxing (Billings Gazette, April 7, 1979)

John Blanchette. Gals’ Bout Still Novelty to Fight Fans (Billings Gazette, April 8, 1979)

Frank Dell’apa. Boxer’s Fast Start in Pros (Reno Gazette-Journal, April 13, 1979)

Giron Faces Tougher Foe (Reno Gazette-Journal, June 13, 1979)

Steve Sneddon. Giron Changes Sides, Wins with Knockout (Nevada State Journal, June 17, 1979)

Live Professional Boxing (Nevada State Journal, September 17, 1979)

Boxing (Nevada State Journal, February 19, 1980)

Mary J. Kudla Obituary. (Co-Op Funeral Home, December 2, 2018)