Although women have participated in boxing for almost as long as the sport has existed, female fights have been effectively outlawed for most of boxing's history until recently, with athletic commissioners refusing to sanction or issue licenses to women boxers, and most nations officially banning the sport. Reports of women entering the ring go back to the 18th century.
Delia 'Chiquita' Gonzalez is an American former flyweight female boxer. She has a record of 13-9-4 with 3 knockout wins, although several of her losses have been controversial.
Deirdre Gogarty is a retired Irish female boxer and current coach of the Ragin' Cajun Boxing Club. She hails from Drogheda and attended Drogheda Grammar School. Before a law was passed in Ireland preventing women from engaging in boxing events, Gogarty was able to begin her career with a six-round decision win against Anne-Marie Griffin. However, when that law was passed, Gogarty could not engage in competition in Ireland. In consequence, she was based in Lafayette, Louisiana and was managed and trained by Beau Williford.
Bonnie Canino is a retired American boxer and kickboxer, and former world featherweight champion for two different associations. She also won world titles in kick boxing for two different associations.
Belinda Laracuente is a women's boxing competitor from Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, where she lived from 1989 to 1998. Her nickname is Brown Sugar.
Lucia Frederica Rijker is a Dutch professional boxer, kickboxer, and actress.
Sumya Anani is a retired American professional female boxer nicknamed "The Island Girl." She was 5'6" and boxed as a junior welterweight. She is best known for a 1996 bout which left her opponent severely injured and may have served as an inspiration for the film Million Dollar Baby. Outside the ring, she is a yoga instructor and holistic healer.
Ann Wolfe is an American retired professional boxer, trainer and actress. Wolfe held world titles in three different weight classes simultaneously and is regarded as one of the greatest female boxers of all time. She is a member of the International Women's Boxing Hall of Fame.
The British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) is the governing body of professional boxing in the United Kingdom.
Richard John Hatton is a British former professional boxer who competed between 1997 and 2012, and has since worked as a boxing promoter and trainer. During his boxing career he held multiple world championships in the light-welterweight division, and one at welterweight. In 2005 he was named Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine, the Boxing Writers Association of America, and ESPN.
Frank Warren is an English boxing manager and promoter and the founder of Queensberry Promotions. Warren was also a founder of the British boxing television channel BoxNation which ran for over 11 years from 2012.
Barbara Buttrick, nicknamed "Battling Barbara", is a retired British boxer and a world champion in women's boxing in the 1940s and 1950s.
Jaime "Hurricane" Clampitt-Hayes is a Canadian former boxer. A four-time world champion at two different weights, she was inducted into the International Women's Boxing Hall of Fame in 2021. Clampitt-Hayes retired in 2013 but made a comeback in 2021, before finally hanging up her gloves in June 2024.
Matthew James "Matty" Hatton is a British former professional boxer who competed from 2000 to 2013. He held the European welterweight title from 2010 to 2011, and challenged once for the WBC light-middleweight title in the latter year. He is the younger brother of former two-division world champion of boxing, Ricky Hatton, and fought on the undercard of many of Ricky's high-profile fights.
SusiannaLevonovna Kentikian is an Armenian-German former professional boxer who competed from 2005 to 2016. She was born in Yerevan, Armenian SSR, but left the country with her family at the age of five because of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Kentikian has lived in Hamburg since 1996 and began boxing at the age of 12.
Fredia "The Cheetah" Gibbs, is an American former professional martial artist, kickboxer, and boxer who competed from 1975 to 2005. During her kickboxing career, she held ISKA, WKA, and WKF World Titles. Before her kickboxing career she was an All-American in basketball and track.
Holly Rene Holm is an American mixed martial artist. She currently competes in the women's Bantamweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where she is a former Women's Bantamweight Champion. As of September 17, 2024, she is #8 in the UFC women's bantamweight rankings.
Graciela Casillas is an American former boxer and kickboxer who competed in the bantamweight division. After training in several traditional martial arts, Casillas began competing as a kickboxer in 1976, and in 1979 she became the first fighter to hold world titles in both boxing and kickboxing by taking the World Women's Boxing Association's and the World Kickboxing Association's bantamweight championships. Although Casillas' Boxrec record is 5–0, Black Belt Magazine reported in May 1984 that she had 27 boxing matches, winning 15 by KO up to that point.
Claressa Maria Shields is an American professional boxer and professional mixed martial artist. She has held multiple world championships in five weight classes, including the undisputed female light middleweight title in March 2021; the undisputed female middleweight title twice between 2019 and 2024, the World Boxing Organization (WBO) female light heavyweight title and the World Boxing Council (WBC) and World Boxing Federation (WBF) female heavyweight titles since July 2024; WBC and IBF female super middleweight titles from 2017 to 2018. Shields currently holds the record for becoming a two and three division world champion in the fewest professional fights. As of October 2022, she is ranked the world's best active female middleweight by BoxRec, as well as the best active female boxer, pound for pound, by ESPN and The Ring.
The International Women's Boxing Hall of Fame (IWBHF) is a sports hall of fame located in Vancouver, Washington. It is dedicated to women's boxing, and was started by Sue TL Fox and her website Women Boxing Archive Network. The Hall of Fame has a board of 11 members, who vote on nominees who are submitted to the IWBHF by the public. Terri Moss, a 2015 inductee, says that the IWBHF helps show women's accomplishments in the sport. Their primary mission is to "call honorary attention to those professional female boxers along with men and women whose contributions to the sport and its athletes, from outside the ring, have been instrumental in growing female boxing."
