WBAN’s Upcoming Celebrating of 24 Years on the Net Could Not come at a Better Time!
(APRIL 28) As women’s boxing approaches one of the biggest fights in the history of women’s boxing with this Saturday’s huge fight between multi-world champions Katie Taylor of Ireland vs. multi-world champion and WBAN’s two-time world champion Amanda “The Real Deal” Serrano – it could not be a better celebration for the sport of women’s boxing!
Inducted a second time in a hall of fame–West coast Boxing Hall of Fame – Oct. 17, 2021
When Women Boxing Archive Network [WBAN] was created in May of 1998, women’s boxing was struggling to gain any type of media attention. Throughout 24 years on the net with all the lulls and highs of the sport that was seen has finally taken a firm hold on the sport with female boxers finally getting their time to shine in the sport.
Some of the highlights that I have enjoyed seeing progress in the sport and on WBAN are the following….
*Female boxers are now allowed to compete in the Olympics which took place for the first time in history in 2012, and are now part of the Olympics. Most do not know this—-but this was first brought up in 1976 for female boxers. Look how many years it took to finally see women in the Olympics!
*Female boxers are now getting many great opportunities to fight as an amateur to gain those skills to move on to turning pro with many of them having over 100 amateur fights. When female boxing was not allowed legally to compete in the amateurs, many of the women turned pro without even one amateur fight prior to turning pro.
*Promoters now giving some of the female boxers much better opportunities to showcase their skills in the sport. They are no longer considered a “Special Feature”—- they are treated much more on the level of just being a great athlete as the male boxers. This is still having room for improvement, with purses and having more females on the cards, but it is slowly getting there and we hope that with the bigger fights that are taking place this will continue the progress.
*In 2014, WBAN created a new and history-first hall of fame organization, called the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame (IWBHF). We have now inducted 88 of the top elite in the sport, and we again will be celebrating 16 of those in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 22, 2022 at the Orleans Hotel & Casino.
*WBAN was the history-first in the sport to document the history of the sport in 1998, which followed through with an online Historical Database, that has the history documented from the 1700’s to today’s history and continues to grow with the research that has been done in the sport as a resource for the public.
*Developing one of the argest and most detailed biographies of the many female boxers in the sport, professionally and amateur that continues to grow throughout the years.
*In 2021, the Mayor of the city of Las Vegas, in Nevada making a proclamation of IWBHF event that took place on August 14, 2021, “Women’s Boxing Day.”
*A history-first that took place in 2008 when at the time the biggest fights that took place with Holly Holm vs. Mary Jo Sanders, and Chevelle Hallback vs. Jeannine Garside took place on PPV, in Albuquerque, New Mexico fighting for the the first independent WBAN P4P Award World Title Belts, when belts like this did not exist for females in the sport. Male boxers could fight for the Ring belt, but women were not included until many years later as the sport continued to grow.
*WBAN developed top yearly awards to continue to acknowledge the top females in the sport, called “The Best, the Coolest, in the sport.”
*On a personal level of what I felt may have helped was bringing attention to mismatches and hopefully throughout the 24 years it lessened that catastrophe of this occurring, and hopefully it continues to help in this aspect. This was very important to me, as I was misled when fighting as a pro boxer, making my pro debut with a 10 year plus trained female boxer, and I had never trained inside a boxing ring, never had my hands wrapped and trained briefly for a few months with a karate instructor.
I want to personally thank everyone who has helped WBAN become the top source for the sport with all of the articles, photos, coverage, and more that has been contributed throughout the 24 years on the net.
This Saturday, when Taylor and Serrano fight in the main event at the Madison Square Garden, in New York, to me, personally, this is the icing on the cake to see how the sport is moving forward to being in the mainstream of the sport.
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