On the 16^th March, in the Centro Recreacional Las Vegas, Barranquilla (Colombia), she was so much better than Delia Jiménez – "immeasurably superior", as Boxeo Colombiano put it – that even Jiménez knew it, preferring when the bell sounded for the third round to remain on her stool and hear the whistles than face another four minutes like the four she had just endured.

About Esther Ramírez, whom she confronted in the same venue on the 13th April, we know only what Boxrec tells us: that Francia knocked her out in the second round.

Last Friday's opponent, former amateur champion Olga Julio (that's her, the Lucia Rijker lookalike on the left) can therefore lay claim to an endurance record of sorts: her resistance spilled over into the third, before she, too, quit, complaining of exhaustion. Francia, who looks as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, may even have become over eager as she felt the resolve of her opponent weakening: referee Mario Cuellar was in the process of penalizing her for hitting after the break, when Julio, who had made a fight of it for two rounds (although it was Bravo that had landed all the best punches), elected to jack it in.

"The girl can box," says the only woman to have beaten her, South American featherweight champion María Andrea Miranda. "She has good technique, she knows how to throw a punch, and she hits hard." Miranda, who recently went 10 rounds with WIBF featherweight champion Ina Menzer (who outweighed her by two kilos!), was actually considered the underdog when she faced Helena Bravo in Valledupar on the 15^th December (2006). "But" as she told Boxeo Colombiano, "my greater experience – and talent – told in the end."

The end, in this case, came in the second round, when she knocked Bravo out; but (as Hemingway was fond of saying)  what doesn't break us makes us stronger, and,  as subsequent events have shown, that end was also a beginning: Francia seems to have learned something from "The Panther of Moñitos", and when you compare the two stylish draws (with Paulina Cardona) that fell one side of the Valledupar watershed with the two submissions and a knockout (in just over twelve minutes) to have fallen the other, it's not too difficult to guess what:  that it doesn't hurt to be ruthless.

If that job of Co-Assistant to the Editor is still open on Runway  magazine, we know one candidate with all the requisite qualities: style, physical beauty, and the killer instinct – though whether she'd be content to trail around behind another woman like a puppy-dog, somehow, I doubt.

Date: 18^th May 2007

Venue: Centro Recreacional Las Vegas, Barranquilla (Colombia)

Over four two-minute rounds at bantamweight

Francia Helena Bravo of Córdoba defeated Olga Julio of Sucre by TKO (submission) in round three

Source: Boxeo Colombiano

#          #          #          #

For Online IWBHF Tickets for Next Event!

Check Our Next Annual International Women's Boxing Hall of Fame Event that we have to celebrate hour IWBHF Inductees and Special Award  Recipients!  Next Event, Go Here!

Our Online WBAN/IWBHF Online Store

Proceeds from the Online Store is to continue our mission to support the INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S BOXING HALL OF FAME. The Official collection includes IWBHF and WBAN Merchandise and Memorabilia from the WBAN Boxing Collection. We will continue to list items from the collection and merchandise.