| Director | Katya Bankowsky |
|---|
Bankowsky began working on a film about women's boxing in the early 1990s, when she was training to fight at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn. Filming commenced at the 1995 Golden Gloves competition, the first year the tournament was open to female participants, a group which included Bankowsky herself. After filming the Golden Gloves, Bankowsky began searching for the woman she thought would be the first truly great female champion. After meeting with Barbara Buttrick, founder of the WIBF, who was in the process of starting a global database of women interested in the sport, Bankowsky came across footage of Rijker and decided she would be the perfect subject for her film.
At the time, Rijker had left her native the Netherlands to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles. She had been the kickboxing champion of Europe for 14 years and had wanted to retire from fighting, but Bankowsky telephoned her and convinced her that she would be the first world champion of women's boxing if she chose to pursue it. Rijker agreed to let Bankowsky film her as she took on this challenge, and the director followed her for the next three years while she worked toward winning the world title.