Prominent Pioneer Female Boxer Receives Honorary May 2020 Fighter of the Month!

(APR 29) WBAN is excited to announce that the month of May 2020, we are giving an honorary Fighter of the month to prominent Pioneer Female Boxing champion Barbara Buttrick, 90 years old for her life long achievements in the sport, in and out of the ring. [Story by WBAN’s Sue TL Fox]

Barbara Buttrick Inducted into the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame in 2014, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA.

The countless pioneer boxers who helped pave the way for many, many years, who did not have the opportunities that today’s boxers in the sport.  It is with great pleasure to honor Buttrick for your years of service in the sport, not only what she did in that squared circle, but what she accomplished outside of the ring.

In the year 2020, has been a great year for  Buttrick, who has received top honors with being one of the first women to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2020, and also being awarded one of the highest special awards with the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame [IWBHF] for the “Lifetime Achievement Award.  The IWBHF event is to take place on August 29, 2020, at the Orleans Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.   Buttrick was also inducted into the IWBHF in 2014.

In the Miami Herald, written by Michelle Genz, in April of 1998, she wrote the following about Buttrick:

 “It’s nearly impossible to imagine former women’s boxing champion Barbara Buttrick with a bloody nose, harder still to imagine the diminutive English-accented bookkeeper bloodying someone else’s. But as “The Mighty Atom of the Ring,” she not only bloodied but broke three noses (including her ex-husband’s, who sparred with her) and scored 12 knockouts, without ever being knocked out herself. Her career record: 30-1-1. “I had a hard left jab,” she says. “I could punch hard from my side, was the reason I could stand up to the bigger girls. They weren’t so keen to come rushing in.”

But the toughest fight of all was getting anyone – besides her opponents – to take her seriously. Buttrick grew up in Yorkshire, England, an only child who was tiny for her age – she boxed as a 4-foot-11, 98-pound flyweight.

“I was small, but I was mean,” she says. One day, when she came home with muddy shoes, her mother handed her the Sunday Dispatch to wipe them with. Barbara, then 15, noticed a story about Polly Burns, prizefighter of the early 1900’s.

It struck a nerve; she bought boxing gloves and a book called The Noble Art of Self-Defense. She found a trainer in London and got a day job as a typist. Every evening, she went to the gym for three hours of bag-punching, rope-skipping and sparring with her 118-pound coach, Len Smith, whom she eventually married. Finding competitors proved difficult because British officials refused to recognize female boxers.

Eventually, Buttrick fought in boxing booths, portable rings that passed through villages, inviting anyone to fight. Sports writers found her quick and skillful, her endurance formidable: in France,. She fought 15 two-round exhibitions in a single day. In 1952, Buttrick and Smith headed for America, where she won eight bouts in a row and knocked out the U.S. female bantamweight champion…Full article