This is part of The Shadow League’s Hispanic Heritage Month In Focus series celebrating Latino excellence in sports and culture.
Amanda Serrano is awesome. Simply put, if she were a man you would be telling me that twice by now. Her bank account might not reflect her Brooklyn counterparts like Daniel Jacobs or the homegrown infamy of a Mike Tyson, but nonetheless Serrano is in the boxing upper echelon conversation.
Serrano is the only woman to win titles in six different weight classes. Move over welterweight juggernaut, Cecilia Braekhus and the rising star in Claressa Shields and your left with the tenacity of the Boricua spirit embodied by Amanda Serrano.
Amanda Serrano – Highlights / Knockouts
Highlights of the former WBO Female Lightweight champion. Amanda Serrano – Is a professional boxer competing in the Featherweight division. She is the former World Boxing Organization female Lightweight boxing champion and is managed and trained by noted female American professional boxing trainer Jordan Maldonado of New York City.
Born in Carolina, Puerto Rico and always representing her hometown of Brooklyn, Serrano has won titles from 118 to 135 pounds, earning her the No. 2 ranking on the BWAAs inaugural womens pound-for-pound list. The 29-year-old is also the only Puerto Rican male or female to capture world titles in six different weight classes and cemented that record on September 8th at home in the Barclays against Esther Reynoso.
MMA | Combate Estrellas | Amanda Serrano vs. Corina Herrera
La jaula de Combate Amricas ech chispas cuando Amanda Serrano y Corina Herrera se enfrentaron en Los ngeles durante Combate Estrellas I. Follow Combate Americas on social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/combateamericasofficial Twitter: https://twitter.com/combateamericas Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/combateamericas/
She fought for the fifth time in her career at Barclays Center making history once again in front of her most passionate fan base, the Puerto Rican boxing fans of New York.
Serrano (35-1-1, 26 KOs) faced Yamila Esther Reynoso for the vacant WBO Junior Welterweight World Championship. With her dominant unanimous decision win, Serrano set a womens boxing record now joining an elite cast of Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya as the only boxers, male or female, to reach the mark of six division world champion.
“This means everything to me,” said Serrano in her last post-fight interview. “I work so hard and I hope this fight shows the fans that girls can fight and we can give it our all just like the men do. We deserve to have this platform and we deserve to be shown.
Serrano is also working a full-time job just to be able to fight professionally. However, the money just isn’t enough and the champ added a sport when she signed with Combate Americas this past January to fight MMA bouts for the allure of the women’s MMA game. When you look at the barriers Gina Carano and then Ronda Rousey broke through for the women’s game, you quickly begin to understand that only in MMA can a women’s main event sell successfully on pay-per-view. Although Serrano is revered in boxing she is not enough of a draw to warrant the marquee slot in boxing and the riches that a pay-per-view bout can provide its main event fighters.
MMA | Combate Estrellas | Amanda Serrano vs. Corina Herrera
La jaula de Combate Amricas ech chispas cuando Amanda Serrano y Corina Herrera se enfrentaron en Los ngeles durante Combate Estrellas I. Follow Combate Americas on social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/combateamericasofficial Twitter: https://twitter.com/combateamericas Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/combateamericas/
Her older sister, Cindy Serrano is also a professional boxer that holds down a full-time job as a boxing trainer with Amanda at The Dojo NYC, a gym in the Ridgewood section of Queens, N.Y.
The 2012 Olympics marked the debut of women’s boxing in the Summer Games. Claressa Shields has since won her second gold medal in the middleweight division. Heather Hardy and Shelly Vincent had a slugfest for the ages on the nationally televised Premier Boxing Champions. Cecilia Braekhus fought Kali Reis on the undercard of the Gennady Golovkin-Vanes Martirosyan bout and Amanda Serrano fought Esther Reynoso on the undercard of Shawn Porter vs. Danny Garcia on SHOWTIME.
It is because of women like Amanda Serrano that there is a women’s game that is thriving on some level. As Serrano and other push past the gender gap in pay and even enter new sports in a “bring my talents to South Beach” financial upgrade, rest assured that Serrano will continue to lead the way for a new generation of two-sport women fighters battling for the worth and their literal survival.
