CULTURETECHLENSJackie Tonawanda
VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)
Combined Graph record U-07754 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6882.
Jackie Tonawanda (1933–2009), born September 4, 1933, in New York and known as “The Female Ali,” was an American heavyweight boxer and women's boxing pioneer. According to the International Boxing Hall of Fame, Tonawanda was denied a professional boxing license by the New York State Athletic Commission in 1974 because of her gender, filed a sex discrimination suit in 1975 that was ruled in her favor, and on September 19, 1978, was among the first women granted a license by the commission, along with Cat Davis and Marian Trimiar. The Hall of Fame and ESPN both record that she was the first woman boxer to compete at Madison Square Garden, registering a second-round stoppage of Larry Rodania (also rendered Rodaina) in a mixed martial arts bout in 1975 — an exhibition-context bout, not a sanctioned professional boxing match. Her claimed won-lost record is contested and is not asserted here: the Hall of Fame credits a ledger of about 35–1 across 36 bouts, while BoxRec and the Women Boxing Archive Network find only one documented professional bout, a 1979 loss to Diane Clark, with her other claimed fights unsanctioned and undocumented. She died of colon cancer on June 9, 2009, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a Women's Trailblazer in 2021.
Answer summary · this record in brief, from its own record text
Jackie Tonawanda (1933–2009), born September 4, 1933, in New York and known as “The Female Ali,” was an American heavyweight boxer and women's boxing pioneer. According to the International Boxing Hall of Fame, Tonawanda was denied a professional boxing license by the New York State Athletic Commission in 1974 because of her gender, filed a sex discrimination suit in 1975 that was ruled in her favor, and on September 19, 1978, was among the first women granted a license by
The record
- Also known as: Jacqueline Garrett, Jean Jamison, The Female Ali
Notes
Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0507. Firsts disposition: 'First woman to box at Madison Square Garden (1975)' ASSERTED in its precise sourced form — first woman boxer to compete at Madison Square Garden, in a 1975 mixed martial arts / exhibition-context bout — supported by the International Boxing Hall of Fame and ESPN, and independently by the Women Boxing Archive Network. CONTESTED and NOT asserted: her claimed won-lost record (Hall of Fame ledger c. 35–1 vs. BoxRec/WBAN documented 0–1) and her birth name (Jacqueline Garrett per BoxRec; Jean Jamison per Wikipedia) — both shown in the description, never blended. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Tonawanda's verifiable legacy is legal and symbolic, not statistical: she sued, won, was licensed in the first trio, and put a woman's name on a Garden card in 1975. The graph honors that documented core and leaves her self-reported record exactly where the evidence leaves it — unproven. Photo: HELD — no depicting Commons file verified; see media basis.
Sources
- International Boxing Hall of Fame. “Jackie Tonawanda.” International Boxing Hall of Fame. Accessed 2026-11-03. http://www.ibhof.com/pages/about/inductees/women_trailblazer/tonawanda.html (primary source · build store)
- Associated Press via ESPN. “Floyd Mayweather, Laila Ali among group elected to Boxing Hall of Fame.” ESPN, December 2020. Accessed 2026-11-03. https://www.espn.ph/boxing/story/_/id/30526927/floyd-mayweather-laila-ali-group-elected-boxing-hall-fame (build store)
- Women Boxing Archive Network. “Pioneer Female Boxer: Jackie Tonawanda.” WBAN. Accessed 2026-11-03. https://wbanmember.com/tonawanda/ (build store)
- BoxRec. “Jackie Tonawanda.” BoxRec Wiki. Accessed 2026-11-03. https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php?title=Jackie_Tonawanda&oldid=959614 (build store)
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Record CTL-E-6882 · Combined Graph record U-07754 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 4 sources.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.
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Chicago: CultureTechLens. “Jackie Tonawanda (CTL-E-6882).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-6882/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). Jackie Tonawanda (CTL-E-6882) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Combined Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-6882/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “Jackie Tonawanda (CTL-E-6882).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-6882/
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