Timeline of women's sports in the United States and fitness and creating an educated public that supports gender equity in sport." The first women's professional football league (WPFL) kicks off its inaugural season with seven teams. 1974 - The first women's professional football league in America (WPFL) kicked off its inaugural season with seven teams. 1974 - Lanny Moss was the first woman to manage a professional men's baseball team. She was hired by the minor league Portland Mavericks. 1976 - In the first Women's Professional Softball World Series Championship the Connecticut Falcons came out on top. 1977 - Janet Guthrie was the first woman to compete in
Hidehiko Yoshida The fight was even closer than its first iteration, as Yoshida won the first round to the judges and kept himself mostly out of danger until the third round, but he lost again by decision. Yoshida recovered from the defeat submitting Tank Abbott at the next event with the judo technique known as kata-ha-jime. At the end of the same year, Yoshida faced fellow Japanese judoka Naoya Ogawa by an armbar in a highly anticipated MMA bout at PRIDE Shockwave 2005 with each fighter receiving a payment of US$2 million, which remains one of the most expensive fights in MMA