Women’s boxing could be huge right now based on the talent at the top of its divisions alone. Seniesa Estrada, Yokasta Valle, Chantelle Cameron, Katie Taylor, Kenia Stephanie Enriquez, Claressa Shields, Yesica Nery Plata, Dina Thorslund, and Amanda Serrano, to name a few, are all incredibly entertaining to watch in the ring and offer a demonstration of skill worthy of being a top billing on any card.

While the sport has come a very long way over the last 12 years in terms of its promotion, there’s still a lot more to be done to bring the profile of women’s boxing up to where it belongs – alongside men’s boxing.

Double down on grassroots and diversifying entry to the sport

Women’s boxing hit a new peak at the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games with the likes of Nicola Adams and Katie Taylor dazzling audiences with their near-impeccable skills to fight for honours, as The Guardian relayed at the time. It was the first time that women’s boxing was accepted at the colossal sporting event since 1908, offering a new and very real target for would-be female boxers.

Since then, many Olympic medallists have turned pro, transforming their immense amateur pedigree into bankable entertainment in the professional arena. Still, many of those heroes of the 2012 Games are now either retired or on their way to retirement shortly.
Perhaps the most imperious of them all, Katie Taylor, is now 37-years-old. While there are many great young talents climbing the ranks now, they will have broken through similarly tough conditions as those Olympians. With the professional side now firmly entrenched on major cards, broadening entry to more women needs to be the focus.

Female-only gyms is the obvious route to take. This isn’t to say that top-quality male boxing gyms can cater to women, but dividing the path would make it more accessible to many people. In just three years, three such venues opened by Manya Kempner, as the Financial Times reports, have earned 5,000 members.

From there, more competitions and organised events should feature below the professional tier, similar to the 2018 inception of the UK’s first female-only boxing tournament: the Women’s Winter Box Cup. Finding ways to make boxing more generally appealing as a women-specific sport and adding ways to enjoy significant wins will do wonders for getting more talents into the pool. 

More promotion outings and collaborations

Boxing has the capacity to hail its top athletes as gladiators and celebrity personalities. People want to hail boxers and are certainly inclined to because of how accessible the sport is to viewers and the traits it upholds. In the modern age, any star can enhance their celebrity in the digital space, especially through licensed games.

Right now, branded and licensed games in the Slingo arena are the in-thing. You’ve got Slingo Space Invaders, Slingo Britain’s Got Talent, Slingo Shark Week, and sporting Slingo games like Slingoooal! Why not get a boxer like Taylor or Shields as the headline of a Slingo game? Katie Taylor’s Punch-Out Slingo would certainly get clicks while subtly promoting the superstar undisputed world super lightweight champion.

In men’s boxing, promoters have done exceedingly well over the years to get their boxers in the right places to promote themselves and upcoming fights. We’ve seen the releases of tell-all books, appearances on game shows, and sports entertainment crossovers – such as by going into the WWE for a match. In March, Claressa Shields attended an Easter egg hunt in Flint, Michigan, which will have helped the local boxer promote herself and the family event.

More work beyond the biggest professional fights should be done, from broadening the accessibility of grassroots boxing to getting star boxers out and about to promote themselves further.