Half Navajo and half Chickasaw, Wagoner’s childhood was split between reservations in Gallup, New Mexico, and Whitecone, Arizona. She describes the environment as being ridden with substance abuse, something she links back to the horrific era of Native boarding schools, a system her grandfather passed through.

“Yosh,” as she is known, found her escape in athletics. In high school, she was a quarterback on the boys team, and later played rugby at Kansas University. Although her father was a boxer, he neither revealed that information nor introduced her to the sport at any point. It wasn’t until she covered a local boxing event while working as a journalist that she discovered the “Sweet Science.”

Not long after Wagoner made her discovery, she decided to give boxing a try herself, and two months later, had her first amateur bout. Within a year, she would go from being spooked by the ending of Million Dollar Baby and frightened by the muscular appearance of her first opponent, to winning the national championship and medalling on the world stage, winning the silver medal in the light heavyweight division at the 2008 World Championships in Beijing.