Who's Who: Tara

Who’s Who: Tara

Tara
5’6”, 135 to 148 pounds (lightweight, Jr. Welterweight, and Welterweight), 26 years old, boxing for 17 years, 10 with Rose
Style: Any and All
Handedness: Orthodox, can fight southpaw
Preferred Colors: Tara has boxing shoes and trunks in almost every color. Her gloves are usually black, but not always. Often, her colors will reflect her Irish heritage, which she is very proud of. She has ancestors that fought at the GPO in ’16, and others that fought in ’98.

Record vs other known gym members
Rose: 0-4 or more, another match planned
Sarah: 3-2
Maria: 1-1
Sam 1-0,
Felicity: 1-0
Chris: 1-0
Liz: 0-1, rematch planned
Red: Match scheduled

Tara is well known at the gym to be the second best boxer there, behind only Rose. Everyone she’s boxed with, she’s managed to defeat at least once, even if her opponent is a lot bigger are stronger (except for Rose and Liz,) although she’s also lost some hard fights. These constant gym matches have served her well as a pro; she’s widely recognized as a leading welterweight contender.

She’ll fight anyone for the pure joy of boxing, the raw challenge. Being hit doesn’t bother her, if she’s also hitting. A hard fight is when she feels most alive. She’s also constantly analyzing every fight, everything she does in the ring, striving to perfect her art. She’s stymied by her ongoing difficulties with blocking uppercuts, although Rose is doing her best to help her correct this problem.

This constant urge to fight the best gets her into trouble sometime; she’ll challenge almost anyone her size or larger. (She won’t challenge anyone smaller than she is, but if they challenge her, she’ll fight them.) Her first fight with Rose was only a short time after she arrived at the gym, and another student had challenged the teacher. Rose knocked her out in a hurry, then asked, “Anyone think they can do better?” Tara thought she could do better, and said so.

When Rose asked, “Do you really think you can beat me,” she answered, “I can do better than she did, win or loose.”

And despite knowing of Rose’s sadism, she did fight her, and do better than the previous victim. It took Rose 4 rounds to knock her out. She’s fought Rose 3 more times (that they’ve mentioned, anyway; there’s undoubtedly more that they haven’t mentioned) and been beat up every time—though just under a year ago, she gave Rose a good bloody nose and a beautiful shiner.

She’s frustrated by her inability to beat Rose, and determined to keep trying until she does beat her up, despite (or, though she refuses to admit it to herself, perhaps because of) Rose’s sadism. In a few months, she and Rose planning another match.

She also wants a rematch with Liz—she took a tremendous beating from the tall heavyweight, and wants to knock her out. She knows she needs to train hard, and have a plan—but Sarah’s younger, bigger sister fascinates her—and it’s mutual

Among other things, everyone knows that she can take more punishment than anyone else that has ever fought in this gym, with the possible exception of Rose herself—no one’s seen Rose take a real pounding. Although Rose hasn’t said it outright, she’s never seen anyone able to take so many punches and keep fighting.

She doesn’t know it, but Rose has made her a personal project, grooming her to become her assistant in a few years, and possibly her successor.

She and Sarah are very good friends and rivals. This friendship makes their fights all the more intense, both knowing that the most savage fight won’t hurt their relationship—but will make the next fight all the more challenging.

She’s on excellent terms with almost everyone, helping them improve, and always quick with a word of encouragement when it’s needed. Still, give her grief, and she’ll give it back in equal measure—and invite you into the ring, with painful consequences.

She’s a scrupulously fair fighter, taking after Rose in that regard, but she also knows every trick of dirty boxing that Rose’s decades of experience have allowed her to convey.

Outside of the gym, she’s working on her PhD in physics, leaving her little time for other pursuits besides boxing and school; as an undergrad, she minored in theatre, but had to choose between that and boxing. Boxing was more fun, kept her in shape, paid decent—and made her feel more alive than anything else. Her professors have tried to discourage her hobby, with little success, not realizing that it pays her bills—and her best inspirations seem to come after a hard fight.

Incidentally, she’s even more brilliant at the esoteric aspects of quantum physics than she is at boxing, accidentally cutting a bench at the gym in half with one of her toys.

(Yes, Tara is nuts, but I like her. There’s a LOT of me in her…)

This is part of my "Who's Who" galery, showing off each foghter of the gym--and some visitors, as well