Stephanie Simon, a 29-year-old Marine Corps captain, has navigated a male-dominated world from her days as an eighth-grade wrestler to her time in the Marine Corps. Soon she hopes to make her mark in professional boxing.
Simon, who won the 2023 Olympic Trials but was unable to secure a spot on Team USA, will make her professional debut on Sept. 27 in Fayetteville, Ga., on the undercard of Alycia Baumgardner’s return against Delfine Persoon.
For Simon, the Olympic Trials in December were the culmination of years of dedication and sacrifice. Yet, despite winning her weight class, her path to the Olympics remained uncertain due to earlier qualification complications.
“Winning the Olympic trials was something I’ve always wanted to do,” Simon said. “But when I did it, I realized it doesn’t actually mean anything.”
Simon’s victory at the trials did not guarantee a spot on the Olympic team. Instead, she was invited to a USA Boxing High-Performance training camp, where she would be evaluated against the top-ranked fighter in her weight class, Morelle McCane.
“It’s basically an in-house evaluation,” Simon said. “Our performances go into a whole grading system that includes all the other workouts we do, the lifting and conditioning. After that evaluation, they will decide who will go to the next qualifying tournament.”
Simon, who had previously participated in selection camps two years earlier, knew her chances of securing a spot on the team were slim.
“I already was defeated and felt as though the Olympic Trials was a tournament to nowhere,” Simon said. “I knew the likelihood of somebody getting the spot of someone that’s already on the team would be very unlikely.”
She was right – she didn’t make the team as McCane qualified for the 2024 Olympics at the 2023 Pan-Am Games, by winning silver. “I wanted to be the Team Captain for USA Boxing at the Olympics,” Simon said. “That is what hurts the most.”
With her amateur career nearing its end, Simon, who had relocated to Florida, considered her next move. Though she had a background in wrestling and considered MMA, she ultimately chose boxing, possibly with a point to prove. Accustomed to being an outsider, Simon reflected on her time at the Naval Academy and her early days in the Marine Corps, where she faced skepticism and resistance in her leadership role. Making tough, solitary decisions was nothing new to her – now she just had to do it in boxing.
“The United States Marine Corps up until 2016 had regulations and rules and restrictions on what women were allowed to do, and women were not authorized to be in Combat Arms jobs,” Simon said. “At 23 years old, while my peers were boxing, I was commanding Marines, making decisions that could affect lives.”
In 2017, a year after the rules changed, Simon took command.
“As a 23-year-old woman, girl, to be in charge of 50 guys that had never seen a woman in that position, that in itself, in a lot of ways, was traumatic because I was not well received,” Simon said. “Our job was essentially to take infantrymen from ship to shore, and from shore of a beach back onto the ship. We had about 20 amphibious assault vehicles, which are amphibious tanks, essentially with machine guns.”
After the trials, Simon embarked on a transformative road trip from Florida to California, seeking a fresh start in her boxing career. Her journey was not just a physical move but a symbolic leap into professional boxing. From training with friends in Orlando to meeting her Olympic hero Henry Cejudo in Phoenix, Simon’s road led her to an unlikely destination: Santa Monica.
“I met Milton Lacroix through a mutual friend, and he brought me to one of his fighters’ homes, a Beverly Hills mansion,” Simon said. “He had an entire boxing ring set up in a basketball court in the backyard. So I ended up sparring a few guys there, and that was literally the second day I was in Santa Monica. Kind of cool. Santa Monica, California was my final destination. That’s where I live now.”
Simon, known for her pragmatic approach, is renting a room in Santa Monica, one she found through an app and training at Churchill Boxing Gym. Her decision to move was driven by her desire to surround herself with the best and make the most of her final run in boxing.
Recalling her early days in wrestling, when young men would tell her “Who the hell is this girl coming in here on the boys’ wrestling team, trying to wrestle with us and compete with us?” That chip on her shoulder has fueled her determination to defy the odds throughout her life.
“I have that fighter mentality, but also being a woman in a man’s space,” Simon said. “I’ve been doing that my entire freaking life.”
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