The State of Women's Boxing Might Be Changing? Maybe?


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For my short boxing life I have heard nothing but idea that women's boxing short lived prime fizzled out in the 90's after Leila Ali was finished. In 2012 after the first women's boxing team went to the olympics some things began to change.  There were no easy sponsorships for these athletes after the games,  Even after Claressa Shields brought home gold the first time.  Athletes like Heather Hardy, Melissa Hernandez, Shelly Vincent, and local CA fighters like Melissa Mc Morrow still are largely unknown.  2016 has been a little different.  Finally some televised fights in the USA.  And now Claressa is making her Pro Debut.  We are also having an all female pro card in CA 12/3 CA Female Pro Card by the trainer/promoter that hosts Beautiful Brawlers every year (A massively expanding and well known amateur card that hosts girls from all over USA and several other countries).Beautiful Brawlers  I thought this article on this topic sums it up well;  The rise of women's boxing from Espn:

 

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"Women's boxing has long lived in the shadows of the sport.

It's a cycle that begins and ends with television networks, a cycle that stems from a perception that the quality of female talent is thin. Yet, without the ability to sell women's fights on televised cards, the signing and developing of female fighters is rendered an unprofitable business for promoters. The opportunity for women to make a living fighting thus becomes virtually impossible ... and the cycle continues.

"I'm a little embarrassed we haven't gotten to it sooner," said Stephen Espinoza, executive vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports, about the network's plans to put women's fights back on its air. "We aim to rectify that very quickly -- and not on a one-off basis but on a meaningful regular basis as well."

While Showtime still hasn't promoted a fight since 2001, it plans to do so, and women's boxing will be televised Saturday, when Claressa Shields makes her professional debut on Saturday in a four-round super middleweight bout against Franchon Crews. It will air on ESPN3 on the "freeview" undercard of Sergey Kovalev and Andre Ward's pay-per-view fight on HBO.

Coupled with the previous strides made in 2016, it appears that a new era of women's boxing is dawning.

Claressa Shields has dubbed this era as the "reintroduction to women's boxing." The era took a giant step forward on Aug. 21 when Shields became the first American fighter, male or female, to defend an Olympic gold medal. That same day, Heather Hardy and Shelly Vincent became the first women to be featured on a Premier Boxing Champions nationally televised undercard.

Now, that era is primed to move ahead even further.

Well aware of her role in what could be the surge needed to finally carry women's boxing from out of the shadows, Shields is preparing to make her professional debut on Saturday.

Shields chose to begin her professional career rather than stay an amateur (and have the guarantee of eligibility to return to the Olympics in 2020) in part because of the potential the timing presented. At 21 years old, amid what already feels like a revolution in women's boxing, Shields is primed to take up the baton and carry the sport over the line it has come so close to crossing so many times.

"I don't want to let this flame burn out that we have right now," Shields said. "You have to seize the moment and take advantage of it.

"I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it for women's boxing."

Heather Hardy
Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for ESPN

Heather Hardy sits in a car and cries when she finds out the news that Claressa Shields had won her second gold medal.

Shields has marinated on this concept of being the change for some time. It was a primary reason behind her decision and a seed that was planted before she won her second gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, when she had a conversation with Hardy about the two fighters' mutual hope for the future of their sport and the respect it deserves.

The way Hardy understood it, Shields' turning pro would send a message: This is what women do. Women fight. Women box.

"We weren't just thinking about each other making millions of dollars; we were thinking about the other women coming up behind us," Shields said.

"This is a new era, and that's no disrespect to Christy Martin or Lucia Rijker or Laila [Ali]. But the women of this generation are just different. And me? I'm one-of-a-kind. You only get one of me every century."

New York-born and bred, Hardy used to dream about becoming a Yankee. As a child she would even envision herself running out of the bullpen at Yankee Stadium. She watched every game. She knew every stat. But little girls didn't play baseball.

 

 

"I remember feeling like I was sorry I liked it," she said. "I was sorry I was a girl."

Later in life, Hardy adopted a new dream: becoming a professional boxer. But as she transitioned out of the amateurs, she was confronted with a harsh reality: Women don't make much money fighting.

"A bunch of the girls who are pro [told me], 'Just know this isn't a life for you; this is a hobby because you'll never make any money off of it,'" Hardy said.

"And 20 years later, I have that same feeling. I'm sorry I'm a girl."

Lou DiBella
Nick Laham for ESPN

Lou DiBella congratulates boxer Amanda Serrano after her win during a fight at Barclays Center in July.

Hardy was the first woman to be signed to a long-term promotional contract with Lou DiBella's company, DiBella Entertainment. DiBella, one of New York's premier boxing promoters, has been one of the main actors at the forefront of the current revolution. In addition to Hardy, DiBella has signed deals with other prominent women fighters, including WBO featherweight champion Amanda Serrano and Hardy's last opponent, Vincent.

While DiBella said he doesn't make money off their fights, the fact that he puts on shows in New York and throughout New England means Hardy and the other female fighters in his stable who are from the area sell enough tickets to cover a "good portion" of the costs of their bouts. DiBella, who admits he was once hardened to the idea of women in the ring when he was an HBO executive, has said that promoting his female fighters has become a cause for him.

"I admire their dedication. I admire their spirit to want to bring about change," DiBella said. "I'd say a number of these women right now are not only out there as fighters; they're out there as trailblazers, as advocates. They're trying to change the status quo, to be agents of change, so that other women coming forward in the sport in the future have an easier road and an opportunity to make a living the same way men do."

The difference between the money that male and female fighters can make fighting doesn't necessarily stem from a gap in fight purses -- in fact, according to DiBella, male and female fighters on the same card will generally make similar money for the same level of fight. The difference, then, is the fact that televised fights come with much bigger purses, and without opportunities to fight on televised cards, women simply don't have the option for bigger paydays. As DiBella put it, it's a wage "ceiling."

"While male fighters are going after that $100,000 payday -- the $50,000, $150,000 or $1 million payday -- those paydays don't exist for women because television has been closed to them," DiBella said.

Female fighters with untelevised bouts thus become more reliant on whatever percentage of ticket sales they get, which can often mean more aggressive promotion of their own fights, spreading the word and hanging up posters to try to sell tickets.

Heather Hardy fights Shelly Vincent
Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for ESPN

Heather Hardy and Shelly Vincent fought on national television in August.

Hardy, a single mother, has considered taking MMA fights to help pay the bills, a proposition that recently became even more real when DiBella had to cancel the cards he had scheduled in New York through the end of the year because of a new provision that requires promoters in the state to secure $1 million of insurance per fighter in the event one suffers a traumatic brain injury. Unfortunately for Hardy, one of those events DiBella had to cancel was a show at Barclays Center on Dec. 16 that Hardy was supposed to fight on.

"As much as I'd like to discourage her as a promoter from [moving to MMA], I'm not going to because she has to do what she has to do to maximize her revenue streams, to take advantage of her popularity and to try to make a living for her and her daughter," DiBella said. "I can't fault her for needing a supplemental income."

Clarissa Shields
Cooper Neill for ESPN

Claressa Shields hasn't officially signed with any promoter ahead of her pro debut on Saturday.

It's worth noting that while DiBella has signed some of the best female talent in the United States, his stable is missing the biggest star in Shields, who told ESPN in September before announcing her pro debut that the only company she wanted to sign with was Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions. However, Shields' agent said she has yet to make any decisions regarding a promoter as of this week.

DiBella's investment could turn out to be a gamble that pays off if the status quo changes.

The current pool of female talent is ripe for a chance at the big time, with fighters on the rise from coast to coast. Even across the pond, where women's boxing is already more prominently televised, 13-year Irish amateur and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Katie Taylor has too decided to turn professional.

"The skill level and talent base is all there," Espinoza said. "It's just a matter of providing the opportunity."

Espinoza wants Showtime to provide that opportunity. The five-year executive said that putting female fights back on the network's airwaves has been on its to-do list for some time, and that he hopes to get one on a card in the first quarter of 2017.

Espinoza and DiBella have elevated conversations even further, with "pretty extensive" discussions about the prospect of an all-female card sometime next year. DiBella said that that type of card would ideally feature a Hardy-Vincent rematch, possibly even for a world title, if Hardy ends up fighting for one in March, as DiBella suggested she might.

An all-women's card is certainly an ambitious goal, considering it likely would require the cooperation of various promoters, but Espinoza doesn't consider it insurmountable.

"If we can be the unifying force to bring this aboard, we'd be happy to," he said

Stephen Espinoza was hired as executive vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports in November 2011.
Edward Diller/Icon Sportswire

Stephen Espinoza was hired as executive vice president and general manager of Showtime Sports in November 2011.

The concept of elevating women's presence in combat sports by making opportunities possible isn't new for Showtime. Ronda Rousey fought her final three Strikeforce fights before signing with Dana White and the UFC in 2012, and those bouts aired on Showtime. Other female mixed martial arts stars such as Gina Carano, Cris "Cyborg" Justino and Miesha Tate also came up through Strikeforce before making the same jump.

"When you look at the business opportunity, which has been demonstrated in MMA, you can't really argue that the market isn't ready or the audience isn't ready," Espinoza said.

The momentum that peaked in August, with Shields' Olympic win and Hardy and Vincent's televised bout, is palpable and has continued to pick up steam. For women in the sport, it's a fight for their livelihood and for equality in the ring, present and future.

"If my daughter wanted to box, I would never be like, 'Yeah, you should work for that,'" Vincent said. "Before I would've said, 'No, you're never going to get anywhere. They're never going to accept you. You're never going to make any money.'

"But now I would say there is hope, there is a light at the end of the tunnel."

That light is primed to grow brighter again on Saturday, when Shields steps into the ring at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

"Just tell everybody this is the reintroduction to women's boxing," Shields said. "Thank me later."

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I am getting excited for this entire card including the women.  Claressa Shields will have Stitch Duran in her corner.  That is a great honor for a pro debut fight.

 

And some awesome hype/trash talking: 

 

And a link for the undercard that WILL be televised but that is not on the PPV portion: 

 

Woot!!  

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I wonder how womens boxing at pro level can sustain itself though, there doesnt appear to be a market for it tbh, most hardcore boxing fans are only really interested in watching Male fights and the casuals only watch the mega fights for the most part... or am I missing something?

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Agreed scribbs but then its hanging on the tailcoats of the mans game; unfortunately there are some truly talented female fighters that will never get the respect or credit the rightly deserve!

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Great Fight, $50,000 payday for Shields!!   That is the most I have heard for Women's boxing in decades!!   Some of the best in the sport have been lucky to make $11,000 for  a TITLE fight in 2016!!!    It was a brawl but both showed skill.  Shields had faced this opponent in the amateurs at least 4 times and won.  It is a great start for history in the making :-)

This from Espn:    http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/18090683/claressa-shields-defeats-franchon-crews-via-unanimous-decision-pro-debut

Claressa Shields defeats Franchon Crews to kick off pro career

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By Dan Rafael | Nov 19, 2016
ESPN.com

LAS VEGAS -- Super middleweight Claressa Shields, the two-time U.S. Olympic gold-medal winner, made her professional debut in action-packed style as she powered to a four-round decision victory against amateur rival Franchon Crews on Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena.

Shields, a 21-year-old from Flint, Michigan, was the best female in amateur boxing and named the most outstanding fighter of the women's tournament at the Rio Games in August. She began her pro career by defeating Crews, a decorated amateur who had lost three times to Shields in the unpaid ranks.

Shields beat Crews again in the paid ranks and did so handily, winning 40-36 on all three judges' scorecards in a blazing fight. ESPN.com also had Shields winning 40-36. Their fight took place on the undercard of Andre Ward's light heavyweight world title challenge against Sergey Kovalev.

Claressa Shields, Franchon Crews
Al Bello/Getty Images

Two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields, right, powered to a four-round decision victory against amateur rival Franchon Crews in her professional debut Saturday night in Las Vegas.

"It feels so good to have just made my pro debut," Shields said. "This is what I've been training for. I'm faster and I hit harder. And I'm the better fighter. But Crews brought 100 percent, and I respect her for that. I hope to fight next in January or February." 

As soon as the bell rang to begin the fight, Shields and Crews stormed toward each other with all-out aggression in what was a blazing first round. There were several heated exchanges, and they both landed clean punches. The action did not let up in the second round, but Shields appeared to get the better of Crews, even landing a heavy left hand as the round wound down.

Referee Russell Mora twice warned Crews (0-1), 29, of Baltimore, for pushing Shields to the canvas and sneaking in some solid blows.

Shields (1-0), who earned $50,000, was going hard for a knockout in the fourth round and rattled Crews, who made $10,000, with several hard punches.

"It's not what I wanted, but to be called on, last minute, for a fight of this magnitude, I am proud of myself," Crews said. "We will fight again in the future."

Shields, the most decorated female amateur in history who is also a four-time U.S. national champion and two-time world amateur champion, has not lost since 2012 and finished her amateur career 77-1.

 
 
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