State that the girl's outside the boxing association (7)
I believe the answer is:
alabama
'state' is the definition.
(I know that Alabama is a American state)
'the girl's outside the boxing association' is the wordplay.
'the girl' becomes 'Alma' (girl's name).
'outside' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'the boxing association' becomes 'aba' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'alma' placed around 'aba' is 'ALABAMA'.
'that' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for alabama that I've seen before include "SE US state" , "US state in the cotton belt" , "State of SE USA" , "Somewhere in US" , "US state on the Gulf of Mexico" .)