25 years - Sue Fox and WBAN

Sue Fox is celebrating 25 years of the premier women’s boxing website, WBAN (Women’s Boxing Archive Network) during the two-day IWBHF tenth anniversary celebration October 6-7.

The 25-year journey has been a long and winding one that Sue started after she had hung up her gloves. In 1996 Sue took up the sport once again, in an effort to get in shape for a Race For The Cure Event in Portland, Oregon.

“I joined a boxing gym after 17 years away from the sport,” Sue recalled. “I knew the boxing training would get me in shape!” A fellow student let Sue in on what was the biggest women’s boxing news of the day- Christy Martin and Deirdre Gogarty facing off on a Mike Tyson card.

“Being a pioneer boxer, this really had my interest,” Sue said. “So I went to the internet to find virtually NOTHING about my boxing career, and/or other pioneer female boxers. The only information I did find, was historically inaccurate.”

Dismayed, Sue extensively researched the history of women’s boxing for the next two years. After gathering the accurate facts, as well as news and even more history, in May of 1998, WBAN went live on the internet. Just like everything else in boxing, the effort was far from easy “As far as building a website,” Sue confided, “I am self-taught. I knew nothing about building websites, and it was difficult without proper training.” Regardless of the struggle, her efforts were successful. Sue conquered the task, and has been properly and exclusively documenting women’s boxing for over two a quarter century.

While Sue is widely known to the boxing industry for her ring career and laboring to bring women’s boxing to the forefront of the media world, she also is an extremely accomplished musician, encompassing another audience entirely. Her music career began at age 9, with her stepmother insisting on accordion lessons.

“I competed in many talent shows as a child,” Sue remembered, “and when I turned 20, went on to playing guitar, then bass guitar, keyboards, and Alto Saxophone. I am currently in two bands, one four-piece band, and a corporate band.”

Performing with a band gave Sue a break from her job as a police officer, and she admits, is her favorite hobby when not covering boxing. Does she see any similarities between music and boxing? “What I have noticed is there are many boxers who are musicians,” she said. “I’m amazed at the multi talents in both music and boxing.”

Music like boxing has a flow. To keep up the flow, musicians and fighters must execute practiced moves and improvise seamlessly when necessary. Sue Fox has demonstrated the practice and the improvisation in both worlds. She has made a success of playing to her own beat, improvising, creating, and learning as she worked to create WBAN when the need arose, and hitting all the right notes when she takes the stage in her band.