List of Famous Female Boxers
Tonya Harding
Tonya Maxene Price is an American former figure skater, retired boxer, and reality television personality. Born in Portland, Oregon, Harding was raised primarily by her mother, who enrolled her in ice skating lessons beginning at four years old. Harding spent much of her early life training, eventually dropping out of high school to devote her time to the sport. After climbing the ranks in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships between 1986 and 1989, Harding won the 1989 Skate America competition. She had been the 1991 and 1994 U.S. champion before being stripped of her 1994 title, and 1991 World silver medalist. In 1991, she earned distinction as being the first American woman to successfully land a triple Axel in competition, and the second woman to do so in history. Harding is a two-time Olympian and a two-time Skate America Champion.
Valentina Shevchenko
Valentina Anatolievna Shevchenko is a Kyrgyzstani-Peruvian professional mixed martial artist and former Muay Thai fighter. She currently competes in the women's Flyweight division for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). She is the current UFC Women's Flyweight Champion. Shevchenko became champion at UFC 231 after defeating Joanna Jędrzejczyk. She is the younger sister of fellow UFC fighter Antonina Shevchenko. As of November 23, 2020, she is ranked #2 in UFC women's pound-for-pound rankings.
Holly Holm
Holly Rene Holm is an American mixed martial artist who competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. She is the former UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, and a former professional boxer and kickboxer. She was a multiple-time world champion in boxing, defending her titles 18 times in three weight classes, and a two-time Ring magazine fighter of the year. She is ranked by BoxRec as the best female professional boxer of all time. She has the notable distinction of being the first fighter to hold a world boxing title and a UFC title.
Claressa Shields
Claressa Maria Shields is an American professional boxer and mixed martial artist. She has held multiple world titles in three weight classes and reigned as the undisputed female middleweight champion from 2019 to September 2020, having held the unified WBA, WBC, and IBF female middleweight titles since 2018; and the WBO female middleweight title from 2019 to September 2020. She has also held the unified WBC and WBO female light middleweight titles since January 2020; and the unified WBC and IBF female super middleweight titles from 2017 to 2018. Shields currently holds the record for becoming a two and three-weight world champion in the fewest professional fights. As of November 2020, she is ranked as the world's best active female light middleweight by The Ring and BoxRec, as well as the best active female boxer, pound for pound, by ESPN, second by The Ring, and seventh by BoxRec.
Laila Ali
Laila Amaria Ali is an American television personality and retired professional boxer who competed from 1999 to 2007. She is the daughter of Muhammad Ali and is the eighth of her father's nine children. During her career, from which she retired undefeated, she held the WBC, WIBA, IWBF and IBA female super middleweight titles, and the IWBF light heavyweight title.
Mary Kom
Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom is an Indian amateur boxer, politician, and incumbent Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha. She is the only female to become World Amateur Boxing champion for a record six times, the only female boxer to have won a medal in each one of the first seven World Championships, and the only boxer to win eight World Championship medals. Nicknamed Magnificent Mary, she is the only Indian female boxer to have qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics, competing in the flyweight (51 kg) category and winning a bronze medal. She had also been ranked as the world's No. 1 female light-flyweight by the International Boxing Association (amateur) (AIBA). She became the first Indian female boxer to win a gold medal in the Asian Games in 2014 at Incheon, South Korea and is the first Indian female boxer to win gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. She is also the only boxer to become Asian Amateur Boxing Champion for a record six times.
Estelle Mosselly
Estelle Mossely is a French professional boxer who has held the IBO female lightweight title since 2019. As an amateur, she won gold medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2016 World Championships. As of September 2020, she is ranked as the world's fourth best active female lightweight by The Ring and seventh by BoxRec.
Katie Taylor
Katie Taylor is an Irish professional boxer and former footballer. She is a two-weight world champion and the current undisputed lightweight champion, having held the WBA title since 2017; the IBF title since 2018; and the WBC, WBO, and Ring magazine titles since 2019, as well as having held the WBO junior-welterweight title in 2019. Following her victory over Delfine Persoon in 2019, she became one of only eight boxers in history to hold all four major world titles in boxing—WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO—simultaneously.
Marcela Acuña
Marcela Eliana Acuña is an Argentine professional boxer and part-time politician. She has held multiple super bantamweight world titles, including the IBF title since 2018; the WBA title from 2006 to 2008; the WBC title twice between 2008 and 2010; the WBO title from 2013 to 2014; the IBF title from 2016 to 2018; and the WBA interim featherweight title in 2016. As of September 2020, she is ranked as the world's best active female super bantamweight by The Ring and BoxRec, and the third best active female, pound for pound, by BoxRec and tenth by The Ring. She won the Konex Award Merit Diploma in 2010 as one of the five best Boxers of the last decade in Argentina.
Nicola Adams
Nicola Adams is a British former professional boxer who competed from 2017 to 2019. She retired with an undefeated record and held the WBO female flyweight title in 2019. As an amateur, she became the first female boxer to become an Olympic champion after winning gold at London 2012, and the first double Olympic champion following a second gold medal at Rio 2016, both in the flyweight division. As of 27 May 2016 she was the reigning Olympic, World and European Games champion at flyweight, and won the entire set of amateur championships available to her - Olympic, Commonwealth and European Games' titles, and the World, European and European Union championships.