Ringside Report Looks Back at Former World Champion Fredia “Queen Cheetah” Gibbs
By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart
Cheetah, Queen Cheetah, or the Lady Jack Johnson? Perhaps she was as one “Bad” Brad Berkwitt called her: dedicated. No matter the ascribed description, one thing is sure, Fredia Gibbs, 9-2-1, KOs, is each and every one of them, and some.
Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, Gibbs fought at both lightweight and welterweight in a career that straddled multi-disciplines – Muay Thai, Kickboxing and, of course boxing.
Her entire career has a thirty year sweep engaging with violent art forms, from the mid-70s until the new millennium, but in a world of crossovers this is a woman who can lay real claim to being a GWOAT, the Queen of combat sports.
The evidence is compelling.
In 1994, the media dubbed her “The Most Dangerous Woman in the World” after she beat the previous one, champion Valérie Wiet-Henin of France in San Jose, California. It made Gibbs, a trailblazer as the first African American Kickboxing ISKA world champion – she never lost in a Kickboxing contest!
Gibbs truly was an all-American sport star, and her original nickname, the Cheetah came from her prowess in track at Chester High School. There are suggestions that it named their track team – Chester’s Cheetahs – after her. Gaining a scholarship in basketball and track, she went on to attend Temple University in Pennsylvania. I also read that she even tried out for the Olympic basketball team but didn’t make it – combat sports’ gain.
It’s hard to believe that her reason for starting any form of combat was down to being bullied and wanting to raise her self-esteem. As she told Brad in her interview in his book “Boxing Interviews Of A Lifetime”, “I was very thin and quite smart in school. The bullies would chase me home from school and at times, I would burst out the emergency door of the bus to get home faster.” And what was to be here savoir? Family. According to one other interview she gave very recently, she had some homespun philosophy from her mother, “Don’t waste your good energy trying to take revenge on someone who did something to you. Let God handle them because God’s revenge is far greater than anything you could ever put on them. In the event you do take matters into your own hands, you are going to mess up God’s plans. Take that anger and turn it into something positive.”
Mom may have given the theory, but the practical came from an uncle, William Gross, who heard about her troubles, and offered respite in a gym – he was a martial arts instructor. It was a journey that would lead to three world championships in kickboxing. Added to that, in her wealth of sporting experiences, is European professional basketball in Germany!
She arrived in the world of professional boxing in 1997, where she won a four round decision over Maria Fortaleza Recinos on the 23rd of January in Reseda.
Her first prominent fight was a world title fight for the IFBA light welterweight strap against Leah Mellinger, which she lost. The circumstances around that were explored by Brad in his book and she explained why the 1998 fight, in Atlantic City on the 21st of March, came at the wrong time. “At that time, I had signed a contract to take four months off to shoot the female boxing movie, “KNOCKOUT”. What happened is, right after I signed on for the movie, the chance for a world championship fight came up. I thought I could do both.”
Simply put, she couldn’t.
It was her first loss, but they do say true champions show how they can deal with such adversity and Gibbs grew out of that with guts and determination.
On the 16th of November, 2001 she had her second world title fight for the WIBA super lightweight title against Sumya Anani, on the 16th of November 2001 in Austin. Anani had beaten another legend of the fighting game, Christy Martin, to win the belt – it ended as a draw.
It was absolutely ripe for a rematch. On the 28th of April 2003 in Lemoore, that happened but for all the promises Gibbs gave to “Bad” Brad that: “In the rematch Queen Cheetah will come out,” an injury to her right hand meant that Gibbs could not appear for the second round, and she suffered her second boxing loss. It was her final fight in a boxing ring, and she retired from boxing.
But of all the fights she had in the ring, Gibbs also had to utilize those skills when fending off an attacker trying to abduct her. But in the years since her combat career came to an end, she has used this vast experience to help others. She has been a philanthropist, motivational speaker, sports model, actor, author, celebrity trainer, and radio host! She did want to be known as “FAST, DEADLY and SEXY” in “Bad” Brad’s book and we can testify that all boxes have been significantly checked!
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