1977: Four Female Bouts Featured on a History – First Card in Lake Tahoe, Nevada

Copyrighted Photo:  WBAN purchased the copyrights to photo of Shirley Tucker –All Rights Reserved.

On Tuesday night,  December 6, 1977, at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe Hotel, in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, there was a professional boxing card, featuring four female bouts on the card.  This was a history-first for female boxing in the state of Nevada.  There were other boxing cards in Las Vegas that donned two female bouts, but never four on a card.  This was definitely a ground breaking card.

The four female bouts were the preliminary bouts for the main event which featured a men’s bout. In one bout, Toni Lear Rodriguez, of Portland, Oregon,  fought Baby Bear James, winning by points in a four-rounder.  In another bout, Shirley “Zebra Girl” Tucker of Santa Rosa, California,  took on Jamie Gayden of Los Angeles, California,  and won that four rounder by points.   In a third bout,  Lydia “Squeaky” Bayardo,  of San Pedro, California fought Karen Bennett,  of Las Vegas where Bayardo stopped Bennett in the fourth round by KO. The two had previously fought in a crowd-pleasing four round bout, where the fight ended in a draw ; and lastly, Julie Mullen, 20 year old,  of Virginia City, Nevada,  stopped Rochelle Johnson by a KO in the fourth round.

Boxing promoter Bill Dickson, also called the “father of women’s boxing”  had also asked Sue TL Fox to be on this card—but she declined because she had already accepted another fight on another card in Portland, Oregon and was preparing to fight that opponent.