THERE WERE EIGHT people crammed into a small house on South Street in Fremont, Ohio in 1998. The four sisters lived in one room, the parents and one brother in another and the maternal grandma in a third room that doubled as a living room. The space where Mario and Sherry Guzman started building their growing family was crowded, yet organized.
Two of the sisters were twins, and one, in particular, had a glowing smile and goofy demeanor that switched the second she had a chance to fight.
Alycia Baumgardner was only 4 when she started to wrestle and 8 when she started to box. She came from a family of fighters — men and women. Her grandfather, grandmother, uncles, cousins, an aunt and father all fought or trained in boxing.
Mario said he started teaching his daughter little things about boxing as early as age 2, and at 6 he asked Alycia if she wanted to be the next in her family to take the sport more seriously.
Alycia Baumgardner went to Fremont Wreckers gym and began what would eventually become her life’s work, learning a Mexican style of fighting from her paternal grandmother, Maria Guzman. Her power was there early. The speed came later. Her combat life developed through discipline and structure instilled by her parents.
“That’s where it all began, and I just went every day,”…
