The Ring presents its inaugural women’s pound-for-pound rankings
Posted: 24 Aug 2020, 05:01
For three consecutive weeks, women’s boxing took the sport’s center stage and delivered hotly contested bouts that had hardcore fans buzzing on social media. And it wasn’t just women’s boxing enthusiasts sharing their thoughts on Terri Harper-Natasha Jonas, Cecilia Braekhus-Jessica McCaskill and the Katie Taylor-Delfine Persoon rematch, male fans who usually ignore (and sometimes disparage) female boxers engaged in lengthy, exchanges about the fights and heated debates how they scored the title bouts.
But for now, let’s get to know The Ring Women’s Ratings Panel:
Diego Morilla – a 25-year veteran of the fight game who has covered boxing in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Argentina for major outlets including ESPN.com, HBO.com, Maxboxing.com and The Ring. He lives in Buenos Aires and is the moderator of the weekly debate of the women’s ratings panel.
Thomas Gerbasi – a 25-year veteran who covers combat sports for various publications, including The Ring (where he serves as the women’s boxing feature writer) and BS.com. An award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, Gerbasi is also the current Editorial Director for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Yuriko Miyata – an editorial staff writer for Japan’s Boxing Magazine since 1997. She has lived between Southern California and Tokyo since 2004, focusing on female boxers as much as the men. Miyata is on the staff of the female boxing website ThePrizeFighters.com and is The Ring’s Japan correspondent.
David Avila – Southern California’s godfather of women’s boxing coverage hails from a boxing family that includes his father, who fought at the Olympic Auditorium during the 1950s, and his great grandfather, Battling Ortega, who fought numerous world champions from 1916 to 1928. Avila formerly wrote for the L.A. Times and has a weekly column for the Riverside Press-Enterprise, La Prensa, Unidos and Excelsior newspapers. He is the West Coast editor for TheSweescience.com and has written for the respected website since 2005. Avila, who has covered women’s boxing since the 1990s, is the new editor of ThePrizefighters.com.
Sue “TL” Fox – a pioneer female boxer during late 1970s and founder of the Women Boxing Archive Network (WBAN), and the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame (IWBHF). WBAN, started in 1998, is the major worldwide source of coverage and history for women’s boxing, amateur and professional. The IWBHF was created in 2014.
Malissa Smith – author of “A History of Women’s Boxing”, the first comprehensive narrative of the sport that Ring Magazine dubbed “The Bible of Women’s Boxing.” Smith continues to write about the sport on her popular blog Girlboxing and provides regular commentary on such boxing shows as Tha Pugilist KOrner, Tha DAWG Pound, and Wombat Sports. Smith is also a founding member of the IWBHF Board of Directors and helped develop the Women’s Boxing exhibit for the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York.
Mark Jones – a member of the International Boxing Research Organization (IBRO) whose opinions have been published in The Ring and are posted on the web in a monthly column entitled The Sweet Side of the Sweet Science. Jones writes a boxing blog (www.boxingjones.com) and has posted a monthly pound-for-pound list for the past eight years. He’s also a voter in both the Pioneer and Modern women’s categories for the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Wildalys Figueras-Snows – a spokesperson on the role of women in the sport from the boxing-rich island of Puerto Rico, Figueroa-Snows created “Boxeo Con Lipstick”, a website devoted to female boxing. She has also served as TV contributor and panel analyst for ABC, Telemundo, and Wapa.
Lupi Gutierrez-Beagle – the daughter of former pro boxer Javier ‘Babyface’ Gutierrez, who boxed at legendary Los Angeles boxing venues, such as the Olympic and Hollywood Legion, during the 1950s. In 2017, Gutierrez-Beagle founded Boxing Meets Beauty, a promotional platform for both amateur and professional female boxers. Gutierrez-Beagle is co-host of the podcast “2-Min Round: Hooks and Jabs on the Female Fight World.”
Yesica Palmetta – started out training side by side with her brother, welterweight fringe contender Alberto Palmetta, in the same gym where former world titleholders Jorge Barrios and Erica Farias used to train. She switched from gloves to laptops when she joined Ring de Ideas, an Argentine boxing website and magazine, in 2008. Later that year she joined the staff of Ring Side magazine under legendary Argentine writer Carlos Irusta, also joining him in the radio show “La Red.” She later became a member of Cerca del Ring and Boxeadoras Argentinas, two radio shows where she currently continues to collaborate. In 2018 she published “La Novia del Boxeo”, a biography of Yesica Bopp. She is also a freelance collaborator of ESPN’s new TV show “ESPN Knockout”.
Irene Deserti – founder and creator of “Rincón Rojo Magazine” in Mexico City since 2017 (which includes a weekly podcast) and director of the female boxing website “Boxeadoras Argentinas” since 2014, Deserti (born in Argentina) is currently one of the most dedicated female boxing writers anywhere in the world.
But for now, let’s get to know The Ring Women’s Ratings Panel:
Diego Morilla – a 25-year veteran of the fight game who has covered boxing in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Argentina for major outlets including ESPN.com, HBO.com, Maxboxing.com and The Ring. He lives in Buenos Aires and is the moderator of the weekly debate of the women’s ratings panel.
Thomas Gerbasi – a 25-year veteran who covers combat sports for various publications, including The Ring (where he serves as the women’s boxing feature writer) and BS.com. An award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, Gerbasi is also the current Editorial Director for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Yuriko Miyata – an editorial staff writer for Japan’s Boxing Magazine since 1997. She has lived between Southern California and Tokyo since 2004, focusing on female boxers as much as the men. Miyata is on the staff of the female boxing website ThePrizeFighters.com and is The Ring’s Japan correspondent.
David Avila – Southern California’s godfather of women’s boxing coverage hails from a boxing family that includes his father, who fought at the Olympic Auditorium during the 1950s, and his great grandfather, Battling Ortega, who fought numerous world champions from 1916 to 1928. Avila formerly wrote for the L.A. Times and has a weekly column for the Riverside Press-Enterprise, La Prensa, Unidos and Excelsior newspapers. He is the West Coast editor for TheSweescience.com and has written for the respected website since 2005. Avila, who has covered women’s boxing since the 1990s, is the new editor of ThePrizefighters.com.
Sue “TL” Fox – a pioneer female boxer during late 1970s and founder of the Women Boxing Archive Network (WBAN), and the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame (IWBHF). WBAN, started in 1998, is the major worldwide source of coverage and history for women’s boxing, amateur and professional. The IWBHF was created in 2014.
Malissa Smith – author of “A History of Women’s Boxing”, the first comprehensive narrative of the sport that Ring Magazine dubbed “The Bible of Women’s Boxing.” Smith continues to write about the sport on her popular blog Girlboxing and provides regular commentary on such boxing shows as Tha Pugilist KOrner, Tha DAWG Pound, and Wombat Sports. Smith is also a founding member of the IWBHF Board of Directors and helped develop the Women’s Boxing exhibit for the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York.
Mark Jones – a member of the International Boxing Research Organization (IBRO) whose opinions have been published in The Ring and are posted on the web in a monthly column entitled The Sweet Side of the Sweet Science. Jones writes a boxing blog (www.boxingjones.com) and has posted a monthly pound-for-pound list for the past eight years. He’s also a voter in both the Pioneer and Modern women’s categories for the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Wildalys Figueras-Snows – a spokesperson on the role of women in the sport from the boxing-rich island of Puerto Rico, Figueroa-Snows created “Boxeo Con Lipstick”, a website devoted to female boxing. She has also served as TV contributor and panel analyst for ABC, Telemundo, and Wapa.
Lupi Gutierrez-Beagle – the daughter of former pro boxer Javier ‘Babyface’ Gutierrez, who boxed at legendary Los Angeles boxing venues, such as the Olympic and Hollywood Legion, during the 1950s. In 2017, Gutierrez-Beagle founded Boxing Meets Beauty, a promotional platform for both amateur and professional female boxers. Gutierrez-Beagle is co-host of the podcast “2-Min Round: Hooks and Jabs on the Female Fight World.”
Yesica Palmetta – started out training side by side with her brother, welterweight fringe contender Alberto Palmetta, in the same gym where former world titleholders Jorge Barrios and Erica Farias used to train. She switched from gloves to laptops when she joined Ring de Ideas, an Argentine boxing website and magazine, in 2008. Later that year she joined the staff of Ring Side magazine under legendary Argentine writer Carlos Irusta, also joining him in the radio show “La Red.” She later became a member of Cerca del Ring and Boxeadoras Argentinas, two radio shows where she currently continues to collaborate. In 2018 she published “La Novia del Boxeo”, a biography of Yesica Bopp. She is also a freelance collaborator of ESPN’s new TV show “ESPN Knockout”.
Irene Deserti – founder and creator of “Rincón Rojo Magazine” in Mexico City since 2017 (which includes a weekly podcast) and director of the female boxing website “Boxeadoras Argentinas” since 2014, Deserti (born in Argentina) is currently one of the most dedicated female boxing writers anywhere in the world.