Ring of Fire: Glendora’s Jajaira Gonzalez Is an Olympic Boxer With Something to Prove

Boxing wasn’t love at first sight for Paris 2024 Olympic Games qualifier Jajaira Gonzalez, who grew up under the shadow of her older brothers.

Her father put it bluntly. “At eight years old, he came home, and he was like, ‘You're gonna box too,’ and I started crying,” Gonzalez tells Los Angeles . “My dad took me to the gym and it was a very hard adjustment because I hated boxing for the longest.”

Gonzalez tried everything she could to avoid practice. She would pretend to be sick and spend long periods of time in the bathroom. Despite her reluctance, her father recognized potential and kept pushing her.

Once she began attending the gym, finding female opponents proved a hurdle for the Glendora native, given the shortage of girls in her age and weight class. This scarcity left her questioning the purpose of training. Because of it, Gonzalez found herself sparring with boys at the gym, an experience that not only showcased her skill but also fueled her determination and passion.

“My dad would put me in there with boys because there was never any girls for me to spar and I would beat up the little boys that were training at the gym,” Gonzalez says. “I would beat the boys up and that's when I was, like, ‘Ok, yeah, I'm good at this.’”

She went on to dominate the world stage at a young age, securing a Junior World Championship, two Youth World Championships and the 2014 Youth Olympic Games. Over a five-year period, she tallied an impressive 10 medals, with nine of them gold, solidifying her as one of Team USA's most highly anticipated female boxers.

Still, Gonzalez has had some stumbles. In 2019, she went into a national tournament without properly training. She recalls: “I’m like, ‘I beat all these girls; who’s going to beat me?’ So I get there and I lost my first fight of the tournament, which had never happened to me before.”

Gonzalez lost on a split decision to someone she had beaten three times prior, all by knockout. The defeat was an eye-opener and led to her taking a year off of competition to train for nationals.

Then the pandemic hit resulting in a four-year boxing hiatus.

Being away from family in Virginia, and in a toxic relationship at the time took a toll on Gonzalez, who was battling depression while gaining 30 to 35 pounds.

“I ended up going through a breakup during the pandemic,” she shares. “It was hard, you know, being overweight and feeling alone, and now my heart's broken, and I'm trying to heal. I just went into a very depressive state. I would catch myself laying in bed all day with my dog, crying and just being lazy.”

Gonzalez would get a job at a kickboxing gym because it was something to do. One day, she was sitting in the gym, scrolling through Instagram, and saw a USA Boxing post about the team traveling to Madrid, Spain. This motivated her to train again for the Nationals, moving back to California to work with the person who saw her potential from the start: her father.

At the 2023 Pan American Games, Gonzalez, with her father by her side, would punch her ticket to Paris 2024 with a third-place bronze finish. Her resurgence back into the boxing world fulfilled a life goal she had had since she was 15: to represent Team USA at the Olympics.

“I think it's great that I'm not only representing the U.S.; I'm also representing the Latino culture, being a Spanish-speaking Mexicana,” Gonzalez adds.