Ring-Card Girls. Three small words. But stand by for big arguments when they’re mentioned in conversation between men and women.
Adam Welsh is a British-based Human Resources Manager with a keen interest in many sports, including boxing. You may have seen him commenting here on The Glowing Edge.
He recently asked me what I thought about ring card girls (he’s asked lots of thoughtful and interesting questions), and as a result he not only sparked a number of offline conversations about the subject, but he also quickly responded when I invited him to write up his unique observations for posting here.
I’ve also posted my own thoughts down below…
You first, Adam. What do you think about ring card girls?
Most guys (including me) have the hots for those high-heeled, scantily-clad ladies who strut their stuff between rounds at pro boxing shows, holding aloft a card showing the number of the next stanza.
When it comes to keeping their customers satisfied, of course, promoters are influenced by a basic gender consideration: boxing crowds are predominantly male.
Male hormones and boring fights
Your average Joe Six-Pack expects three Bs when he attends a fight night: Boxing, Beer and Babes. And there’s no shortage of models, dancers and wannabes prepared to dress skimpily and duck through the ropes every three minutes.
People who watch boxing on television may not realize that a full bill of bouts contains many instantly forgettable fights. To counter boredom, promoters use the card-girls to add spectacle and maintain interest. Yep, that’s how shallow many guys are.
The card-girls are such an established feature now that it would be hard to imagine a show without them.
Women, sexuality, and violence
But some women get annoyed and offended by a spectacle they consider sexist, degrading and juvenile.
“Typical male fantasy-gratification” was the reaction of a woman I know who stopped going to fight nights because the atmosphere created every three minutes made her feel uncomfortable.
Other women think it’s not appropriate for the brutality of the boxing ring to be glamourised in this way. They feel uneasy about the link between violence and sex appeal.
Boxing show or strip club?
One innovation that probably alienated many women in the 1990s was the regular “Miss Ringsider” contest at Budweiser-sponsored promotions in the Great Western Forum, CA. Wearing high-cut one-piece swimsuits, the girls lined up in the ring and paraded one by one to compete for cash prizes, decided by the fans’ votes.
Mind you, that was nothing compared to a promotion I attended in London about ten years ago, which had me asking “Is this a boxing show or a strip club?”
Two card girls wore the tiniest bikinis I’ve ever seen – three postage stamps held together with spaghetti-thin string – and the noise between rounds was deafening. Some of the comments directed at the girls were unrepeatable, and the atmosphere was unpleasant and embarrassing, especially for the small number of female fans present.
The promoter rightly received a warning from the British Boxing Board of Control.
Ring card girls at women‘s fights
In particular, the sight of card-girls during women’s bouts has been called “disrespectful” to the female fighters. An article in The Ring magazine a few years ago called for promoters to drop card-girls from women’s contests.
But do female boxers, locked in intense physical combat, take the slightest notice of the inter-round entertainment?
I’m not aware of any objections raised by women boxers (tell me if I’m wrong). You could argue, in fact, that the fleeting, superficial appearance of the glamour girls serves to highlight the integrity and authenticity of the female fighters.
Here to stay?
As long as the audiences at fight nights are predominantly male, ring-card girls are likely to remain a fixture.
No doubt the growing number of women spectators will continue to roll their eyes at the immaturity of their men-folk. And discuss among themselves – if they can hear anything over the din – how the latest vision of loveliness to pose and pout around the ring could possibly be comfortable in that one-piece mini-dress which looks like it was painted on.
Ok, Lisa’s turn.
Adam, you nailed it in one: mostly the women boxers’ conversations revolve around how teeny the outfits are and how wobbly they must feel trying to navigate on a padded surface in their 13-inch lucite heels.
And in a rather odd turn-about, at one of my fights the promoter put in “ring card guys” — which sounded pretty damn good to me at first, but then I realized it was intended as a joke. They were goofy-dressed dudes who hammed up their caricatures of female ring card girls. I rolled my eyes and had absolutely no interest, although it’s possible the crowd got into it.
And no, I don’t (personally) mind too much that the whole Miss Stripper America thing goes on between rounds. I believe it’s there for the same reasons you already mentioned.
Catching the most fish
And I finally decided that all male-dominated sports (and other entertainments like movies, etc.) that include female eye candy in one form or another do so for one big fat reason above all.
And that is to widen the net.
In other words, promoters and publishers and directors and so on are working hard to capture as many ticket-purchasers as they possibly can.
For men who aren’t rabid boxing fans, they offer a walking centerfold fantasy girl between every round in order to “sweeten the deal” and secure the purchase.
Here’s an alternative to Ring Card Girls…
I love women’s roller derby. We have an incredible team here called the Carolina Rollergirls.
If I weren’t boxing, I would definitely go out for this team. These women are incredibly tough, very skilled at their sport (which is fairly complex), and they know how to have a great time and put on a phenomenal show.
Just like in boxing, you can sit right up next to the track, but in derby, if there’s a spectacular wipeout — and there are plenty — you can revel in the thrill of possibly getting injured yourself as a tangle of helmeted women come flying at extremely high speed in your direction. Believe me, derby gets pretty involved.
They serve beer at the roller derby. A game lasts about an hour and a half. And between jams (about the equivalent of a boxing round) there’s plenty of action. The jammers are the superstars of the derby, and crowds love a great blocker, but absolutely everyone on the track (up to 5 per team) has a major role to play.
Commentators keep the crowd involved, especially by explaining some of the complexities of roller derby play and scoring. They also lighten the mood with funny comments about each of the players, their habits (bad and good), naming (roller derby names are way more fun than ring names), and tactics (dirty and fair).
The Carolina Rollergirls mascot, Evil Ed, is a (fully dressed) blood-splattered skating skeleton who also keeps things lively.
There are giveaways, raffles, charity events, music, antics, and any number of entertaining things that happen between bouts (halves) of the game, and after the game the players are frequently available to chat, sign autographs, and get to know the fans.
The audience is about equally split between male and female, and despite the sometimes serious and potentially damaging nature of the sport, it’s also incredibly family-friendly. That’s two of my boys at a Carolina Rollergirls game. (I didn’t let them get any closer to the track than that!)
I love boxing. Love it. But derby has figured out so many things that boxing has missed.
We may never see roller derby selling high-dollar tickets and winning a mass audience. But if that’s the case, maybe it’s better to be on the fringe.
Okay, everybody. Your turn to chime in!
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
“Typical male fantasy-gratification” says it all about this blatant objectification of women. How pathetic that men get bored without this type of “stimulation.” The packaging of the women in the beer company’s Miss Ringsider competition is sexist and degrading – the suits are designed and branded to make the women look like consumable products. Shame on the sponsor and the promoters involved.
One of the things that’s interesting to me, Laura, is that there is no shortage of women lining up to strip down and be the “Miss Budweiser.” Or the “Round #2 Hot Babe.”
And I agree that it makes women’s sexuality a consumable good, much like pornography sites and magazines do, and that does significant damage to women, men, and relationships.
I’ve tried to make my life look different. I’m a boxer, not a stripper. I spend a lot of time taking care of and thinking about my body, but for different reasons. I don’t go to strip clubs and wouldn’t be happy if my husband did, either. Some days I wonder if that’s enough. Do you?
I wish our culture didn’t use women’s sexuality so much to sell other things. That’s why I like roller derby, too — I can enjoy the antics of “Evil Ed” and enjoy the entire without the misuse of sexuality.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Laura. Hope to hear from you again.
GREAT post, Lisa, as always! And yep, the Roller Derby alternative sounds just fine.
GB, you’ve been boxing longer than I have. And you’ve been studying and writing about women boxers in history. I’d be very curious to hear how things have changed over time in this area. Were there always ring card girls? How did we get to this point?
“Widening the net” indeed. There’s definitely a distinction to be made between the true boxing connoisseur and the person just looking to be entertained. A true boxing fan probably doesn’t need (or want) anything distracting from the two artists practicing their craft, but for a casual observer, you better make it as entertaining as possible or they’ll take their eyeballs elsewhere.
I suspect this same tension exists in many areas. I know as a classroom teacher, there’s near constant hand-wringing over making the course content more interesting and engaging, but these words are often just euphemisms for “entertaining”. I suppose it widens the net, but it also cheapens the final product.
“It widens the net, but it also cheapens the final product.”
Amen to that.
Lisa makes a key point in response to Laura about the number of women prepared to decorate the boxing ring in this way. Overall, the popularity of card-girls – and the itsy-bitsy costumes they wear – shows how mainstream “mentertainment” has become. In some cases, women accept and encourage the trend.
One example: my job took me and a male colleague to Paris last year, where we worked with French colleagues on an executive search project. On the last night our counterparts (a man and a woman) took us to dinner and then to a club near the Arc de Triomphe. The venue was a lap-dance club with two lounges, one at ground-floor level and the other at downstairs level.
It was the French woman who led the way to the lower-level lounge – she clearly knew the place well. “I think you’ll enjoy the view from here,” she laughed, as we gazed at the dancers overhead. Two circular glass stages were located close together, about 20 feet above, and there was a non-stop rota of strippers working the poles topless. The phrase “a room with a view” kept coming to mind.
What interested me was that the French woman thought this was an absolutely normal way to conclude a work collaboration. Also, the audience wasn’t exclusively male, and the club was spacious and friendly.
I salute them! They are awesome!
Believe me, it’s not just men who like to watch the card-girls! I love their confidence, and the way they add glamour and colour to a boxing bill. Most comments I’ve heard men pass about them have been juvenile-hilarious rather than offensive. And why am I not surprised that the bustiest girl won the Miss Ringsider vote? (The blonde could be Lisa Kudrow’s twin sister, I think!)
By the way, if anyone’s interested, I’ve added a comment on the Holly Holm topic also. Thanks.
Nice to hear women weigh in on more than one side of the issue.
I think it serves to point out that “one size does NOT fit all.”
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment, y’all.
Laura’s strongly-held views about the objectification of women remind me of a critique of bikini contests I heard on a radio phone-in a few months ago. The woman who complained described bikini contests as “the utlimate cattle market” for several reasons:
1. The girls are number-tagged like animals.
2. The MC’s microphone is like a cattle-prod, directing the girls so that judges and spectators get to view them from different perspectives.
3. When the line-up of girls are required to turn their backs on the crowd, they lose their identity and become a mass display of “rump meat” for men to enjoy.
It was a brilliant analysis. (But I still enjoy bikini contests!)
This is a discussion that can run and run. In Thailand there are no ring-girls for the MuayThai fights – that’s right, the whole spectacle runs off with an MC who announces the rounds. That’s in one of the toughest no-holds barred combat sports in the world. And that’s where I learnt my ring-craft so was only exposed to ring-girls when I moved back to Europe.
Here in Ireland, they use them for all contact sports – once (infamously) it was 2 pole-dancers whose routine caused outrage more because the event was promoted as a family event than for any ideas of feminism. I was once co-promoter of a show where we used ring-boys – male models – and watching the audience reaction to that was interesting.
Personally I think the whole idea of ring-girls is what helps to keep sports like boxing out of the mainstream, and off prime-time television. It’s out-dated but beloved by many fans so …
Hey there, my fight sister from across the pond! It’s always good to hear from you.
The thought that ring-card girls are part of what’s keeping boxing from the mainstream is a fascinating one, except that I also see them routinely used in MMA fights, which are a huge mainstream event now, and are regularly broadcast on television.
And that actually brings up another thought. Since MMA is typically more bloody (and there are ring — err, cage — card girls), I wonder whether people consider it in any way a “family” sport…
Would you mind if your toddlers, ten-year-olds, or teens became fans? Or wanted to take up the sport?
Would love to hear what anyone thinks.
I’ve always liked roller derby, from the time I was a kid. My siblings and I would gather ’round the TV (back in the day when both boxing and roller derby were regularly shown on the tube) on Sunday evenings, and we’d yell for our favorite teams to win. As an adult, I tried out for a local roller derby league, but alas, I didn’t make it past the second set of auditions.
As for ring card girls. . .I personally can do without them. They don’t add anything to the fights, and it’s especially annoying to see them parading around during women’s matches. Sometimes during exhibition matches done via the park district, little kids come out and march around with the signs. That’s cute. Some scantily clad wanna be model isnt.
@Niamh – I once saw an Andy Lee fight in Limerick, and I was wondering at what venue in Ireland the pole-dancer gimmick was introduced? It’s very wrong to do that when a bill is being promoted as family-friendly.