Meet Cecilia Brækhus, the Boxer Poised to Break Joe Louis's 72-Year-Old Record
Latest
The first women’s amateur boxing match sanctioned by USA Boxing was held in 1993, on the campus of Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood, Washington. The two fighters, Dallas Malloy and Heather Poyner, made history in front of a crowd of 1189 people. But took 16 more years for the International Olympic Committee to lift its ban on women’s boxing in 2009—over 100 years after it was first introduced in 1904, but denied as an Olympic sport because women were deemed too delicate to fight each other. A 2012 New York Times article on the first women’s Olympic boxing match noted that its initial rejection was due to the way boxing commissions “sometimes insisted premenstrual anxiety made females too unstable to box.” Quanitta Underwood, a U.S. boxer who competed but lost her bout in the 2012 Olympics, responded that “making history is not enough. I gave up half my life for this and it just doesn’t feel like the reward of being here is enough.”
As the sport gained slow acceptance in mainstream organizations—thanks in part to the success of Million Dollar Baby, which took the 2004 Oscar for Best Picture—women boxers started developing a stronger, more vocal fanbase. For years, the most recognizable name in women’s boxing was (and remains) Laila Ali, daughter of Muhammad Ali, whose professional career spanned from 1999-2007 during which she racked up no losses and 24 wins, with 21 of those being knockouts. Her record propelled her career and made her name synonymous with the sport for casual fans of women’s boxing. But for boxing fanatics and casual watchers alike, a new name is about to make its way into the history books of women’s boxing—and possibly women’s sport overall.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
