Ana Julaton is a Filipino-Americanprofessional boxer and mixed martial artist. She was the first to win the Women's WBO Super Bantamweight and IBA Super Bantamweight titles. Nicknamed "The Hurricane", she is also one of the quickest boxers ever to win a world title, having fought just five previous professional bouts before winning the IBA Super Bantamweight title. Julaton retired from combat sports in March 2018.
Career
Early career
Julaton was born on July 5, 1980 in San Francisco, California. Despite her father making her train in martial arts when she was little, she had no interest in boxing whatsoever. It was only while working as a bok-fu instructor, at the West Wind Martial Arts and Boxing School in Berkeley, California, that Julaton was introduced to boxing through a lecture session organized by her now trainer-manager, Angelo Reyes.
Amateur career
Julaton made her amateur boxing debut in 2004, managing to win silver in the San Francisco Golden Gloves despite having officially trained for just two weeks. After delivering a good performance at the National Golden Gloves in 2005, Julaton would be taken under the wing of two-division world champion Carina Moreno and trainer Rick Noble, further improving her craft. By 2007, she was ranked second among all female amateur boxers in the USA, and took part in the unsuccessful campaign to include women's boxing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Professional career
At this point, Julaton decided to turn pro, and approached veteran trainer Freddie Roach. Impressing Roach with her work ethic — even sparring against male fighters — Julaton eventually became part of Roach's large stable of boxers, alongside Filipino boxing legend Manny Pacquiao and former world champion Gerry Peñalosa. She was scheduled to make her pro debut against Hondi Hernandez on the undercard of the Pacquiao-Barrera rematch in October 2007, but her fight was canceled when Hernandez failed to make weight. Julaton instead fought and won against Rita Valentini a month later. This was followed by several other successful fights, culminating in her first title win against Kelsey “The Road Warrior” Jeffries on September 12, 2009 for the vacant International Boxing Associationsuper bantamweight title in women's boxing. Now trained by Nonito Donaire Sr., father of boxer Nonito Donaire Jr., Julaton followed up that win by defeating Donna Biggers and becoming the first female World Boxing Organization Super Bantamweight champion on December 4, 2009. Her next fight was on March 27, 2010, against boxer Lisa Brown for the vacant World Boxing Associationjunior featherweight title.
Julaton signed a contract with One Championship to fight in women's mixed martial arts. She is a black belt in Bok Fu, an aggressive martial arts system that combines the 5 animals of Shaolin – Tiger, Crane, Panther, Snake, and Dragon – with Kenpo Karate and Shotokan. She is also a black belt in Taekwondo Julaton made her debut at on May 2, 2014 against Aya-Saeid Saber. She was successful in her debut, winning the fight via TKO in the third round.
