When you look at the current rankings for women boxers, one thing jumps from the page, where are all the professional fighters from the UK and Ireland? The Woman’s sport is made up of Seven Boxing Organisations, WBC, IBF, WBA, WBO, WIBO, WIBF, & the WIBA but only a handful of fighters from the UK and Ireland are ranked. We rarely see women’s fights on our TV’s in the UK and Ireland and it feels almost like an underground sport but in this day and age should it be?
The UFC are leading the way and showing women fighters can be superstars and sell out arenas just like their male counterparts. I believe the UFC tackled the issue the right way, they didn’t do all women cards but slowly introduced women fighters into the televised men’s cards, now every spectator can get to see a great fight regardless of the gender of the fighters. If you are a women fighter and you have the chance to be a Pro boxer or a Pro MMA fighter which option would you be more likely to take?, this is a no brainer for most people as the exposure and money the UFC has is leagues apart to what the female Boxing circuit can offer. Hopefully we will soon see the gap closed for these female athletes.
It isn’t just the UFC that is showing up the UK and Ireland Boxing scene as currently in Mexico, it is one of the few places where women boxers are treated equally and they get the same TV coverage and pay as Men fighters, how long off realistically is the UK and Ireland from doing the same thing? At the current rate it feels about 10 to 15 years behind Mexico so how far behind the UFC are they?
The questions we need to ask is where all the fighters are and why they are not following the natural progression from the Amateurs into the Professional sport, I put these questions to ex fighters, current fighters and promoters. Please see below some off the responses I got back:
I asked ex-professional Women’s Boxer Jane Couch MBE ‘Fleetwood Assassin’ 28 (9 KO’s)-11-0, Why she thought there wasn’t as many professional fighters from the UK and Ireland.
Jane said she didn’t think there was enough fighter depth due to the limited money there for fighters unless they are an Amateur household name. She also mentioned most promoters putting on Female fights are small promoters and due to lack of fighters they are out of pocket bringing Girls over from mainland Europe. Jane also mentioned that with a big promoter like Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom taking on Katie Taylor, hopefully other large promoters will follow suit.
I spoke to a current professional fighter from Monaghan, Ireland called Christina McMahon ‘Lighting’, Super Fly-Weight (7 (3 KO’s)-2-0). Christina is the current WBC World Female Bantamweight Champion and she was the first women to get a Pro boxing license in Ireland and she told me that Female Amateur Boxing only started in 2006 so it is a very young sport as it has only been going for ten years and it is still trying to find it feet. She went on to tell me that since she has turned pro she has headlined a fight in Zambia in Africa and in New York in America.
I contacted another current fighter, Kelly Morgan who is the current WBC Silver Female Middleweight Title holder. Kelly feels the tide is turning with high profile names moving from Amateurs to Professional, ‘Now with top amateur boxers at home & abroad turning over, promoters featuring women on the huge televised shows & with the backing of organisations like the WBC, we are most certainly on the brink of some major positive changes’. Kelly also mentioned that Boxing could learn a thing or two from the way the UFC has successfully promoted their female fighters and went on to say she feels the rise of Women’s boxing can be seen from the Olympics in London in 2012. ‘This was the first Olympics in which women were permitted to box. Following this decision the sport has soared in popularity not because the sport has changed but because people saw that it is possible for women to box, compete, achieve & entertain in the ring. If this had happened in 1904 when men first boxed at the Olympics, imagine where the sport would be now…well it is not hard, just look at the men’s game’.
The Women fighters are there, the talent is there but they just need the backing from the big promoters and professional trainers to make the transition from Amateurs to Professional.
Only time will tell if it will make the progression it deserves.
Please see below links to the organisations that have belts for Women’s Boxing. Information can be sparse when it comes to Women’s boxing, like the TV coverage the Press and Online presence really should be better and easier to find.
WBC: http://www.wbcboxing.com/NEWFEMALE/
WBA: http://www.wbaboxing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Female-Ranking-SEPTEMBER-1-2016.pdf
WIBO: http://www.iboboxing.com/champions.html