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Sue Fox Named  in the "Top Ten" Most -Significant Female Boxers of All Time - Ring Magazine - Feb. 2012

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Helga "Snowcat" Risoy-One of the pioneers...
by Larry Wright

Helga Risoy, born and raised by her grandparents along with five uncles on an island in northern Norway. Her home was on a small island and her school on another island, requiring Helga to row to and from school every day.

When she was nine she became interested in kickboxing by watching it on television. She was not able to start training before 1977 when she moved to Oslo, Norway.  There was no issue for women to participate in Martial Arts and Kickboxing at the time, but the boxing gyms were strictly for men. Helga had a boxing trainer coming to the kickboxing gym to train her, and he finally invited her to his boxing gym as the first women to train there. She was not welcome in the beginning, but she sparred with the guys, and began to gain respect. After a while she invited more girls to the gym, and more and more women joined them. Soon after, the Boxing Association in Norway started to sanction fights for women.

Achievements 

In 1985, she achieved black belt in karate and in 1989, she became the Norwegian national champion in kickboxing. And ultimately, she became the World Champion in kickboxing in Berlin, 1991. During this time, she also competed as an amateur boxer winning the "Norway Box Cup" in 1988; and as a team captain and boxer, represented Norway in the first international competition held for women in Sweden in 1989.

Along with her boxing career, Helga was running her own advertising agency. From 1987-92 she was a board member in The Norwegian Amateur Boxing Association fighting for women's boxing. She was the only woman in the world to be a board member in an amateur boxing association. One of her tasks was editor, writer and photographer for the magazine BOXING.

Leaving Norway

The International Amateur Boxing Federation (AIBA) had a congress in Australia in 1991. This committee banned women from competing in amateur boxing internationally. This was a major setback for women boxing. Since professional boxing was not legal in Norway at the time, the only way Helga could continue boxing was to leave the country.

After moving to the U.S., Helga wound up in Los Angeles and started to train at her hero Benny The Jet's gym. A boxing trainer, Herchel Jacobs "adopted" her and she started to train professionally.

There were no women's boxing at all at the time in the U.S. For one year she had to network across the U.S. to find women boxers and promoters that were willing to put a bout together. Boxing promoters laughed at her, and people did not take her seriously.

Meeting Don King

Don King had a press conference in Los Angeles, and Helga went. She introduced herself as a professional boxer, and King smiled. He invited her to come to Las Vegas to meet him the following weekend. Helga rented a car, drove through the Mojave desert and went to the fights at the Mirage hotel where Julio Cesar Chavez  was the headliner. Don King and Helga were sitting privately, talking for two hours. She finally asked him, "Are you willing to put two of the best women's boxers on your card?". He sat quietly, thinking for a long time before he answered "Yes, I will do that, send me some tapes of your fights".

Fighting for Top Rank - Moving to Las Vegas

She never sent Don King the tapes, because right after that she got her first fight with Top Rank on March 4, 1993. This fight was held at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas on the undercard of Roger Mayweather vs Livingstone Bramble. Most people had never seen women boxing before so they were stunned and surprised. Helga moved to Las Vegas and continued to box. Her new trainer was Mario “Moe” Macias. She was also briefly trained by former Olympic coach Ken Adams, and at the end of her career she was trained by the legendary Emanuel Steward, and became the first woman to train at the famous Kronk Gym in Detroit.

Her third fight was shown on national television, and other promoters began to put women boxers on their cards. Don King kept his word and signed up Christy Martin, who was an exciting fighter to watch. Women boxing started to take off seriously.

Historic Fights as a Pioneer

Since Helga Risoy was one of the first women boxers in the new generation of women boxers she always had to prove to everyone that women also belonged in the sport of boxing. The Nevada State commissioner Marc Ratner said, "Helga Risoy was the first woman to fight in Las Vegas in almost twenty years, she is a true pioneer, she started it all".

She participated in the historic first professional boxing match for women in Mexico, December 12.1994. Also she went back to her Scandinavian roots, and fought the first professional women bout in Denmark, October 21. 1995. Helga was the first woman to box professionally in the North West US, Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation, Idaho, and in Mississippi, Bay St. Louis.

Hard road to go…

It was not easy to get fights. After fighting for Top Rank, Helga began to fight for other promoters as well. She was at the gym every day, but no fights. About 90 % of the fights she was promised were canceled. There were not enough other women boxers out there, so it was hard to find opponents.
She waited and trained and trained and waited, and it was frustrating and hopeless. Time was running out for Helga, who had been training and fighting for 20 years. She said in an interview following her last fight, "Both my hands and my right elbow have been bothering me for the last two years. I am now losing to girls that I probably would have easily beaten as an amateur, so it is time for me to " hang them up", for good".

Helga Risoy retired as a boxer in 1997, but continued to work as an international matchmaker and event coordinator for her former trainer Emanuel Steward, for several years.

Steward died at the age of 68 years old, in 2012. He was world renown as one of the best trainers in boxing history and whose Kronk Gym symbolized Detroit's gritty, blue-collar boxing scene and produced numerous world champions.

After retiring as a boxer and the boxing world, she took up music, which was her first love. Writing her own songs, and performing at small events around in Las Vegas.

Helga is currently working as a web designer, songwriter and singer. She often goes hiking in the mountains, enjoying the quiet beautiful nature that gives her great inspiration for her music. After being a volunteer with rescue horse ranches for several years, she has taken an interest as an animal right activist and adopted a rescue horse. The last 10 years she has spent the summers in Norway, and travels to the Las Vegas area in the winter to get away from the dark and cold winters in Northern Norway.
 

 
     
     

 

     
     
     
 
     
     

 

     
     
     
 
     
     
   
 
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