These days, it’s the common thing to say that before the likes of Amanda Serrano, Claressa Shields, Katie Taylor and their peers broke the glass ceiling and took women’s boxing to a new level in terms of recognition, popularity and financial gain, fighters like Christy Martin, Lucia Rijker and Laila Ali fought tooth and nail to get all those things but didn’t quite get there.
And they did fight. But let’s go back a little further to the 1970s, when the names were Marian Trimiar, Cathy Davis, Sue Fox and Pat Pineda.
They fought, too, with the walls built even higher to keep them out of the sport. Financial gain? Forget it. Respect? Nada. Popularity? Only to a niche audience of a niche sport.
Even today, reel off those aforementioned four names to a casual boxing fan, and you’ll likely get blank stares. Fox? She’ll ring a bell as the chronicler of the sport on the Women Boxing Archive Network (WBAN) website and as the founder of the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame (IWBHF). You may have heard of “Lady Tyger” Trimiar, who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota as part of the Class of 2021. Davis? She was the first woman to appear on the cover of The Ring magazine in 1978. Pineda? Will probably draw a blank when she may have the craziest story of the bunch. Just scour YouTube.com for her speech at the 2022 IWBHF induction ceremony for proof.
Basically, you may have heard of the boxers fighting for their right to compete in the sport, but you probably don’t know their stories.
Georgina Cammalleri wanted to do something about that, and with the documentary she wrote and directed, Right to Fight, she hit the mark in spectacular fashion.
Now a lot of projects are called labors of love, but in Cammalleri’s case, it’s not just PR speak. She truly invested in the film over the last three years and wanted to not just do right by the boxers, but to tell the whole story, warts and all. That’s not easy, considering that the historic record of women’s boxing back in the 70s is sketchy on a good day, but at the end of 90 minutes, Right to Fight stands as an entertaining tale of a bizarre time in a bizarre sport, but also the historic record that was needed in a documentary format.
What may be most telling is the attitudes of those in and out of the boxing world towards women. It’s almost reminiscent of the Civil Rights era when it comes to how they were treated. In the opening moments of the film, the late Jim Jacobs, best remembered as Mike Tyson’s first manager, says, “A woman could never be a boxer, just by the fact that a woman’s role is of being a subordinate.”
Yes. That quote was not from the 1800s.
But the idea of women doing anything in a realm dominated solely by man wasn’t even looked at as a reality. Davis, whose athletic career began in fencing, was told by her coach to go to New York to train with renowned fencing master Csaba Elthes.
He told Davis that he didn’t “teach women or cripples.”
But Davis and her peers weren’t easily dissuaded. Davis met up with a trainer / manager named Sal Algieri, who predicted that women’s boxing was going to be the next big thing. Pineda used the gym to take out the frustrations from being locked into the life of a teenager with two children and no prospects past that.
“Kitchen, pregnant, raising the babies, cooking,” said Pineda of what her life was going to look like.
As for Trimiar, she fell in love with the sport as she shadowboxed with her father while they watched Muhammad Ali fights, and while she had her own hurdles to jump to even get to the point where she could fight, she carried on and was widely considered the best of her generation.
Not that many got to see that for themselves. And when the ladies were given the opportunity to fight, they were often jeered. Pineda, the first woman licensed in California, received death threats and had her section of the local gym burned down. Trimiar saw an exhibition marred by someone calling for her and her opponent to be shot, and Davis went to apply for a license in New York, only to have her application torn up and thrown out in front of her.
“I’m not gonna stop,” said Pineda, who didn’t. Neither did Trimiar, who said, “We had the same goal in life, to be taken seriously as professional fighters or professional athletes.”
Eventually, the villain of the film, the New York State Athletic Commission, got sued and was forced to issue licenses to Davis, Trimiar and Jackie Tonawanda in 1978.
That should have been the Hollywood ending, but it wasn’t. Big promoters wouldn’t promote them, networks wouldn’t air their fights, and subsequently, the money wasn’t there for any female fighter. Then there were the usual shady dealings taking place, with Davis accused of participating in fights fixed by Algieri, a charge she denies any knowledge of, and perhaps the best fighter of that era – Trimiar – having to participate in “Apartment Boxing” in order to make ends meet.
It’s sad across the board, especially since all these women wanted was a level playing field to compete in. Or jeez, a playing field at all that the old boys’ club refused to give them.
But 45 years after New York licensed Davis, Trimiar and Tonawanda, these fighters who paved the way for the stars of today are finally getting their due. At the end of Right to Fight, Davis, Trimiar, Fox and Pineda meet up and trade war stories. It’s a bond only they would understand.
“We were the spark that started a fire that’s burning brightly today,” said Fox.
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Courtesy: https://www.boxingscene.com/right-fight-rousing-look-genesis-womens-boxing–179116