BILLINGS, Mont. — 15-year-old Billings native Taliyah Rodriguez might not look like the scariest teenager, but once she steps into the boxing ring, she\u2019s a whole different breed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rodriguez is a sophomore at Billings Senior High School, and she is a member of the Billings Elite Amateur Boxing Club.<\/p>\n
Her journey began three years ago after the loss of her grandmother.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been boxing for three years now, and what really got me into it was when my grandma passed away from stage 4 cancer around 2022-2023,” she said.<\/p>\n
Three years later, the young teen has used her late grandmother\u2019s memory to become a national boxing phenom.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez is currently ranked No. 1 nationally at 132 lbs. and at 138 lbs., and she has plenty of national titles to prove it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just won my sixth national title in Colorado Springs two weeks ago. I won my very first title at the 2024 Junior Olympics in Wichita, Kansas,” she added.<\/p>\n
One of Taliyah’s many coaches is Stacy Limberhand, who also happens to be her aunt as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Limberhand says her niece trains seven days a week whether it’s at the gym or on her own time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat sets Taliyah apart is, here you\u2019ve got us in this little 406, where people still think we\u2019re riding horses and buffalo in our yard. She is willing to go the extra mile, and she is willing to do extra on top of the extra,” said Limberhand.<\/p>\n
Limberhand also adds that over the last three years, Rodriguez has met and drawn attention from several big names in the professional boxing world.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get pro boxers like Mikaela Mayer, like \u2018Showtime\u2019 Shawn Porter, Rolly Romero, Curmel Moton, even the U.S. Olympic team who are recognizing boxers like her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of the U.S. Olympic team, that\u2019s Rodriguez\u2019s main goal for the future, as she hopes to make the team by 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next few years, I see myself making the high-performance team for USA Boxing, and then eventually going to the Olympics in 2028 or 2032,” said Rodriguez.<\/p>\n
And as her journey continues, her late grandmother\u2019s memory will always live on.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s been around me and has been right by my side my whole life. She\u2019s my rock, and I really appreciated her being there for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taliyah Rodriguez \u2014 remember the name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BILLINGS, Mont. — 15-year-old Billings native Taliyah Rodriguez might not look like the scariest teenager, but once she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,237692,278856,802,3884,7734,237691,18859,85,237693,278855,237690,278857,278854],"class_list":["post-566849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-big-sky","tag-billings-elite-boxing-club","tag-boxing","tag-local-sports","tag-montana","tag-montana-sports","tag-national-champion","tag-sports","tag-sports-montana","tag-stacy-limberhand","tag-swx","tag-swx-montana","tag-taliyah-rodriguez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}