October 11: The Debut of “Hard Hands” Amy Lemenager; Facing Kayla Brady

From Team Lemenager:

Friday October 11th at the Duluth Sport’s Garden, 21 year old Amy “Hard Hands” Lemenager (0-0-0) will make her professional debut versus Kayla Brady (0-1-1) at the 168 pound weight class. Lemenager began boxing late in 2010 as a second sport to hockey, and as an amateur went undefeated before splitting matches with Canada’s Taylor Ross from Nova Scotia back in 2015. She went on to win several more matches before participating in her first national tournament, the 2016 USA Boxing Nationals. There she lost a decision at 165 lbs. to champion Oshae Jones. Those two losses are the only blemishes in her career, and she hopes to continue her reputation of winning and stopping fights early. “My reputation is that I hit like a man. Where I lack in style, I make up in conditioning, strength and determination. And as I grow in the sport, I hope to eventually put it all together and become a well-rounded fighter that is the complete package.”  Lemenager goes on to say “There are some amazing women in this sport right now, and the Middle Weight division is getting a ton of press, deservedly so. Top to bottom in that division there are women who will eventually be recognized as legends of the sport. Right now I just want to continue to grow, meet my challenges and enjoy the time that I have while I’m able to compete.” 

Lemenager’s decision to go pro resulted partly from the geographical limitations of finding opponents. She explains “As I beat all of the local and regional girls, mostly by TKO, it was getting harder to find good competition. The big tournaments seemed to be the only place to find the best talent and see where you fit in. But…those tournaments require you to be gone for almost a week, and you might not have more than a match or two. One of my opponents that I beat twice even made it on Team USA by way of a walk through at one of the qualifiers. It was frustrating because I was limited in time and funds, so I did what I could do while watching my male counterparts getting literally dozens of matches a year locally if they wanted.” 

Living in Northern Minnesota, much of her youth centered around her hockey career as a decorated goalie, which ended suddenly the spring of 2016 before she was to attend college on scholarship and continue playing hockey. A catastrophic knee injury during a spring tournament ended any hopes of playing hockey competitively again. With hockey now permanently out of the picture, coupled with her love of boxing, Lemenager used boxing as a motivation to rehab as quickly as she could while concentrating on academics, attending the University of Wisconsin Superior. After rehabilitating her knee, she had a few more local matches and In 2018 she entered and won the USIBA Collegiate National Championship at 178 lbs while representing UWS as their first official female boxer. She continued to work towards completing her degree in Criminal Justice, earning her diploma in the spring of 2019 after only three years of studies. Lemenager now has her sight set on finishing Police Academy with the City of Duluth so she can represent her home town as a police officer, as well as her journey as Duluth’s first professional female boxer.

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Lemenager’s debut is being promoted by Tony G Presents