Laila Ali
| Laila Ali | |
|---|---|
Ali modeling at the 2011 Heart Truth fashion show
|
|
| Statistics | |
| Real name | Laila Amaria Ali |
| Nickname(s) | She Bee Stingin' |
| Rated at |
Super middleweight Light Heavyweight |
| Height | 5 ft 10 in (178 cm) |
| Reach | 70.5 in (179 cm) |
| Nationality | American |
| Born |
December 30, 1977 Miami Beach, Florida, U.S. |
| Stance | Orthodox |
| Boxing record | |
| Total fights | 24 |
| Wins | 24 |
| Wins by KO | 21 |
| Losses | 0 |
Laila Amaria Ali (born December 30, 1977) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1999 to 2007. She is the daughter of the late heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali with his third wife, Veronica Porché Ali, and is the eighth of her father's nine children. During her career, from which she retired undefeated, she held the WBC, WIBA, IWBF and IBA female super middleweight titles, and the IWBF light heavyweight title.
Laila Amaria Ali was born December 30, 1977, in Miami Beach, Florida, the daughter of boxer Muhammad Ali and his third wife, Veronica Porché Ali. Ali was a manicurist at age 16. She graduated from California's Santa Monica College with a business degree. She owned her own nail salon before she began boxing.
Ali began boxing when she was 18 years old, after having first noticed women's boxing when watching a Christy Martin fight. She first publicized her decision to become a professional boxer in a Good Morning America interview with Diane Sawyer. When she first told her father, Muhammad Ali, that she was planning to box professionally, he was unhappy about her entering such a dangerous profession. However, Laila assured him she would be fighting women, not men, and she had his genetics.
In her first match, on October 8, 1999, the 5'10", 166 lbs, 21-year-old Ali boxed April Fowler of Michigan City, Indiana. They fought at the Turning Stone Resort & Casino on the Oneida Indian Nation in Verona, New York. Although this was Ali's first match, many journalists and fans attended, largely because she was Muhammad Ali's daughter. Attention to Ali's ring debut was further boosted because it occurred on the eve of what was supposed to be the first male-female professional bout ever to be sanctioned by a US state boxing commission ... later ruled an exhibition. As WomenBoxing.com explains: "The near-alignment of the two events focused more attention on female professional boxing than there had been since Christy Martin's 1996 pay-per-view fight with Deirdre Gogarty." Ali knocked out April Fowler – described by WomenBoxing.com as an "out-of-shape novice" – in the first round.
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