A former boxing world champion deemed one of the most successful female boxers ever has been inducted into the boxing Hall of Fame in the USA.

Regina Halmich, 45, has also become the first German woman ever to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF), which is located in the city of Canastota, which is a village in Madison County, in the state of New York, in the eastern coast of the United States.

Halmich, who has an incredible pro boxing record with 52 wins and only one loss and one draw, is the first German woman to be inducted into the IBHOF after heavyweight world champion Max Schmeling, who died in 2005 at the age of 99, became the first German to be inducted into it in 1992.

Halmich is also only the fifth woman to ever be inducted into the prestigious Hall of Fame. She told local media outlet the Hamburger Abendblatt: “I was incredibly happy when the call came.

“That is the greatest award you can get as a boxer. Women have only recently been accepted anyway. I am very proud that people in America remember me years after my career ended – and that I am now in a club with Mike Tyson or Lennox Lewis.”

She said that she had “a lot of respect” for Schmeling and did not compare herself with him and his life’s work.

Halmich is expected to be formally given the award next year (2022).

Halmich, who hails from the western German city of Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, was the WIBF (Women’s International Boxing Federation) world champion in three different divisions. She retired from boxing in 2007.