(OCT 9) After a lifetime of service to the sport of boxing, Barbara Buttrick has finally decided to hang up her gloves. Coming up to her 90th birthday on December 3rd Barbara believes it is time to call it a day.

Barbara Buttrick inducted in 2014 - International
 Women's Boxing Hall of Fame

Since the sad passing of her longtime business partner Jurgen Lutz in June, Barbara has given much consideration to her position as President of the WIBF and GBU. Hence, she has decided to hand over full control of both organizations to Jurgen’s close friend and successor Rainer Gottwald of Germany. 

Barbara co-founded the WIBF with Jimmy Finn in 1993 and the GBU with Jurgen Lutz in 1999. Now, after over 70 years of effort and expense for the cause she loved, Barbara has chosen to step away. Having exhausted every ounce of her energy, she accepts that the sport still finds little favour with her stubborn heart that believes in a different way.

In her new book and film, the story of her life due out in 2020, Barbara deals with all the issues and obstacles which she experienced as a pioneer of the sport for women. She speaks frankly of all the governing bodies who condemned and controlled her with equal measure. She addresses the pyramid of power within the sport which lacks transparency and accountability. She was always a small fish in a big pond of men and money, who didn’t share it. She has transcended all the rules and red herrings invented to keep her and other women out by whatever means necessary. As a second-class citizen of the sport she had to put up with a bible of belligerence, supposedly written in women’s best interest.

Unfortunately, the sport is incapable of correcting itself she laments, because of the cartel of power brokers who control it. Women will never get a just wage because of lopsided economics and a sales strategy that continuously promotes men over women. It doesn’t take a degree in economics she says to access the manipulation of interests and the power dynamic which means that less than ten percent of all the boxers (male and female) earn less than their expenses for their heroic sacrifices.

On the positive side Barbara is thrilled to see the staggering growth of female participation within the sport around the globe. This proves beyond doubt that she was no more a freak than the thousands of amazing women who grace the rings of today. She exhorts these women with new social attitudes to keep up the pressure through social media for more parity within the sport. They deserve nothing less. Women do not just need empathy, they need action. They don’t want better policies they need better practices.

Unlike the WIBF and GBU, most boxing organizations couldn’t care less about women’s boxing except for their need to control it. The very people who put Barbara down all her lifetime care little of her legacy, except to gain as much financially from female boxing as they can possibly take. What was all wrong for generations of women is now all right, only because certain gentlemen agreed it when the economics became obvious to everyone! Certain organizations are now beside themselves convincing Joe Public that they were the creators and the rightful guardians of the sport for women. This is a situation that Barbara passionately objects and she still has a lot to say before she is finally counted out.