1977: Women Fighters Impress Top Men by Steve Sneddon

Copyrighted article:  Reno Evening Gazette, December 7, 1977, Page 68 -Sports Editor – Steve Sneddon

The big fellow in the USA jacket looked genunely enthused about the fights.  He congratulated the fighters.  And he marveled at their ring abilities.  Before Tuesday Night’s fights at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe Hotel, Greg Page, the No. 1 ranked U.S. amateur heavyweight, might have been a boxing chauvinist.  The latest of the Louisville phenoms, not unlike 99 perscent of ring fans, figured boxing was the sole property of men.

Most of Page’s teammates on the U.S. Heavyweight boxing team, which will face the Russians in Las Vegas Saturday, weren’t too keen about seeing a professional card which had four women’s fights and only one bout between male fighters, the 10-round main event.

But they all showed up and they were impressed.  None was more impressed than Page.

“A right hand on a girl like that.  That’s something,” Page said.  A few feet away  stood a beaming Virginia City welterweight Julie Mullen, the object of Pages’s admiration.  Just moments earlier Mullen had used several thunderous rights to stop Rochelle Johnson of Kansas City in the first round of a scheduled four-rounder.

“I knew they could fight, but I didn’t know they had that much power,” Page said.  “If she hit me, I would call the cops on her.  These girls are too cute to be fighting.”

A little later in the evening after Lydia “Squeaky” Bayardo of San Pedro, California, had stopped Las Vegas’ Karen Bennett, one of the world’s better women’s featherweights in the fourth round, Page talked to the winner.

“Let me get your picture,” said Page, as he positioned his Polaroid camera.  “That was a damn good fight.  You’re a fighter.”

Bayardo and Mullen might have been the two most polished women fighters on the card and a pair of the youngest.  The 18-year-old Bayardo, a senior at San Pedro High School, will  probably figure in any woemn’s featherweight title bout.

A likely opponent would be Marian Bermudez of Phoenix.  Dr. Jack Davis of the Nevada Athletic Commission said Nevada Athletic Commission said Nevada would consider sanctioning a Bayardo-Bermudez fight as a Nevada Title bout.

But a title, world as some claim it would be or a Nevada version, doesn’t impress the girl with the lethal right hand.

“I just want to get in there and do my best.  I’m not thinking about anything else,” Bayardo said.

Bayardo, 128, knocked Bennett, 128, down three times before the fight was stopped at 1:21 of the fourth round.

Mullen, 145, knocked down Johnson, 142, two times in the first round of their scheduled four-rounder but the referee didn’t even bother to count the second time knockdown.

The victory raised Mullen’s record to 4-0-0 (3KO).

In a year and a half, she’ll be the best of the welterweight girls, said Ted Walker, Mullen’s manager.  Since women’s professional boxing started two years ago, the 147-pound class has been the most competitive.  But it’s the ability to finish off a hurt opponent, which separates Mullen from most other women boxers.

“She even realizes it when she hurts me in the gym,” Walker said.  “Even fighting guys in the gym, she jumps on them.  She hears that thump and she goes after them.

Mullen, Bayardo and the other women had center stage Tuesday night, but the Bobby Epps-Henry Walker junior middleweight main event seemed to please most of the 800 fans.

It was toe-to-toe, in-fighting battle with Epps, the 19-year old with a 12-0 record, boring in constatntly at Walker, a veteran from Los Angeles with a 22-6 record.  The counter-punching Walker spent most of the fight with his back to the ropes.

In the two other women’s professional bouts, Toni Lear [Rodriguez], 126, of Portland, Oregon outpointed Baby Bear James [Tansy James] of Kansas City, in a four-round bout, and Shirley “Zebra Girl” Tucker, 128, of Santa Rosa, California, outpointed Fonda Gayden [Jamie Gayden] of Los Angeles in four rounder.

In amateur fights, David Fleetwood, 141, of Reno stopped John Cruz, 146.5. and Freddie White, 171, outpointed Mike Woodson, 169.