Gene Simmons’ Tongue Magazine

Spring 2002

Ready to Rumble

By Jose Martinez

She weighs in at just 103 lbs, but Yvonne Tara Caples can knock you flat on your ass. The junior flyweight and 1999 Golden Gloves champion has been a serious boxer for eight years. So don’t brand her another “foxy boxer” or a sports entertainer a la WWF diva Lita or former WWF champion Chyna. “I don’t consider the WWF a sport,” she says with a laugh.

An English high school teacher by day who has shown up to work in Las Vegas with her share of black eyes, Caples moonlights as a pro boxer whenever she can find a worthy opponent. Her boyfriend is also a boxer, and she admits catching people off guard when she tells them what she does. While dismissing such recent boxing films as Girlfight and Knockout, she admits to mixed feelings about the new crowd of celebrity offspring entering the ring.

“Initially, I was against the ‘daughters of the famous fighters’ bandwagon,” explains Caples, 28. “I think Laila Ali is doing a lot for the sport. She represents herself well and admits she’s not the best fighter and that she’s learning. She and her husband have opened a boxing gym in Las Vegas and they’re putting on cards once a month. And they’re putting women on the cards and that’s opening opportunities for us.”

Caples, who maintains dreams of attaining the world championship, encourages students to enter the sport, especially young women as a massive confidence-boosting device. She still remembers her own first time. “I was in the ring with a woman who was a lot bigger than me, an ex-Marine,” she says, “I felt really humiliated. Overall I got an ass kicking. I was in tears after the first time I sparred, but it only made me more determined.

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