360 Promotions inks first female fighter

The current rapid growing popularity of women’s boxing continues its hot trend. Tom Loeffler’s 360 Promotions has signed the talented and charismatic former world champion Louisa “Lulu” Hawton(7-0, 3 KOs) of Australia. Her first fight under the promotional banner will be on the undercard of “Superfly II” February 24th at the Forum in Southern California.

She will take on former world title challenger Anahi Torres of Mexico for the WBC International light flyweight title. This is a very important fight for Hawton because if victorious it’s being rumored she could fight for the WBC minimumweight world title fight on the undercard of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs Gennady “GGG” Golovkin II.

Hawton of Filipino and Australian descent has quite the story but in a very short amount of time. She entered the professional ranks with just 2 amateur fights under her belt. She earned herself a world ranking in her sixth bout by defeating Chamaporn Chairin of Thailand. Hawton picked up the WBO Asian Pacific strap with that victory. This set the stage for her shocking upset of then-unbeaten Japanese star Kei Takenaka for the WBO world female light flyweight title. The win itself was quite impressive doing so in just her 7th professional fight. However, winning by a decisive decision in Japan is a feat very few visiting men or women challengers have done.

Hawton had multiple cancelations as she tried to defend her title so she made the move stateside. There she signed with manager Elvis Grant Phillips and 360 promotions. Grant himself managed 8 world champions over the years. He is also well known for being the owner of Grant Worldwide (maker of Grant gloves). Hawton also enlisted the services of well-known trainer Jimmy Montoya, who along with Phillips will train Hawton. Montoya no stranger to world champions has trained 19 of his own. Her training has been in Arizona, Southern California, and The Mayweather Boxing club in Las Vegas, Nevada. Montoya who is now 81 years old was retired but was so impressed with Hawton’s work ethic and abilities that he came out of retirement to train her.

Jimmy Montoya: “We got ourselves another young, prime, Hector “Macho” Camacho, what a talent!”

Elvis Grant Phillips: “I knew the first time I worked with Lulu in the gym, I called Pops “Montoya” and told him, she’s a natural, another Camacho, born to be a champion, wow…”