1975: Arizona Athletic Commission Approves female Boxing

In the Journal News, dated November 15, 1975, Page 12, they reported that the state of Arizona approves female boxers to fight in that state.  As reported in the Journal New as an AP article they said the following:

Women have won another round in equal rights by getting grudging approval of the Arizona Athletic Commission to engage in boxing.  Appraval came quietly, although openly, by a unanimous 3-0 vote last month in Phoenix.  Within a few days, the first female boxers in state records donned gloves October 10, 1975, in Tucson, where Marion Bermudez scored a second round TKO over Karen Mast.

Commission Chairman Nicholas Kondora said applicants for the $5 license must be between 18 and 38 years old, physically fit, and must have had “a little” experience boxing other women.

Kondora’s opinion he expressed in this article, “I don’t like the idea of women boxing but we had to go along with it.  They told us women are doing it all over the country.  There will be no matches with men.  He then mentioned a “unlicensed amateur bout” in Phoenix in which a woman “got her head knocked off.”  (assuming this is Marion Bermudez he is talking about who fought in an AAU amateur event, getting stopped in the first round) of her second fight in the tournament).

Kondora went on to voice his opinion in saying that he doesn’t like women boxing because there are a lot of punchdrunk male fighters around, and that he didn’t want to see punchy females.

On the other hand, Commissioner Mike Quihuis of Tucson, and ex boxer was reported to be enthusiatic about admitting the female “leather pushers.”

Quihuis said, If girls fight girls, okay.”  “They don’t hit hard enough to hurt one another, and they use bigger gloves than men.”

Quihuis went on to say that last month’s Friday bout, a preliminary wasn’t even well advertised but still drew 1,500 fans.  Kondora said that the weight classes would be the same as males,k with no more than a three to six-pound variation.