My name is Wendy Richards and I am an an amateur boxer.  I guess you'd say I am quite successful as I am the kick-boxing champion of the Wonder Woman Boxing Federation (WWBF) based in Fort Worth, Texas.  Usually I fight under the ring name of Americana, which is how you may of heard of me.

The WWBF prides itself on accepting any challenge which is thrown its way from other fighting clubs.  Because our girls are strong and brave, and we train hard, we usually win such challenges.  So when a challenge was received from the Black Widow Boxing Club of Juarez, Mexico for a shot at the WWBF champion I wasn't unduly worried.  We'd had matches against the Black Widows before and our girls had always come out on top.  In fact a couple of years before, while I was still a relative rookie, I had had a topless fight with a Black Widow girl, which I had won by a TKO in the first round.  So I accepted the fight without hesitation and without checking who they would be putting up.

The fight was to be fought close to the Mexican border at El Paso and I travelled down on the day of the match with my boyfriend and trainer Tim.  We checked in to the venue at about 6 o'clock ready for the weigh-in at 7:00pm.  It was then that I heard the name of my opponent for the first time.  Her real name was Vera Cruz, but she fought under the title of "The Hammer".  I hadn't heard of her before, which I thought was a little strange.  I would have expected to have heard her name on the grapevine, if she was up to challenging the champion of a rival club.

When we came to the weigh-in I was dismayed to see how big and powerful my opponent was.  Not only was she taller than me with a longer reach, but she looked a lot heavier and more muscular.  Suddenly I realised that I might have made a serious mistake in taking on this challenge without doing my background checking first.

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