My Fight / Your Fight (2 page)

I am a fighter.

To be a fighter, you have to be passionate. I have so much passion, it's hard to hold it all in. That passion escapes as tears from my eyes, sweat from my pores, blood from my veins.

So many people assume that I'm cold and callous, but the truth is you need a big heart to fight. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I have had it broken too. I can compete with broken toes or stitches in my foot. I can take a hit without batting an eyelash, but I will burst into tears if a sad song comes on the radio. I am vulnerable; that's why I fight.

It has been that way since I was born. I fought for my first breath. I fought for my first words. The battle to be respected and heard is one I'm still fighting. For a long time, I felt I had to fight for every little thing. But now, one big battle every couple of months makes up for all the minor ones I forfeit every day. Some lost battles are small. Getting cut off in traffic. Taking shit from a boss. The everyday slights that drive us up to the edge. Some lost battles are life altering. Losing someone you love. Failing to achieve the one thing you have worked hardest for.

I fight for my dad, who lost his battle, dying when I was eight years old, and for my mom, who taught me how to win every second of my life.

I fight to make the people who love me proud. To make the people who hate me seethe. I fight for anyone who has ever been lost, who has ever been left, or who is battling their own demons.

Achieving greatness is a long and arduous battle that I fight every day. Fighting is how I succeed. I don't just mean inside a 750-square-foot cage or within the confines of a 64-square-meter mat. Life is a fight from the minute you take your first breath to the moment you exhale your last. You have to fight the people who say it can never be done. You have to fight the institutions that put up the glass ceilings that must be shattered. You have to fight your body when it tells you it is tired. You have to fight your mind when doubt begins to creep in. You have to fight systems that are put in place to disrupt you and obstacles that are put in place to discourage you. You have to fight because you can't count on anyone else fighting for you. And you have to fight for people who can't fight for themselves. To get anything of real value, you have to fight for it.

I learned how to fight and how to win. Whatever your obstacles, whoever or whatever your adversary, there is a way to victory.

Here is mine.

It is late afternoon by the time I get up. I have slept all day, waking up to eat and then going back into hibernation. I get dressed, pulling on the black shorts and black sports bra.

My hotel room is warm. I want my body to be warm, loose.

I stand in front of the mirror. I pull my hair back in sections. First the top, securing it with an elastic band. Then the left. Then the right. Until all my hair falls down my neck. I take another elastic and bring the three sections together, winding them tightly into a bun. My hair pulls at my scalp and opens my eyes wide. As I am standing in front of the mirror something clicks. Seeing myself prepared for battle I feel transformed; everything is different.

There is an hour before it is time to leave. I pull on my Reebok sweats and my battle boots—cheap, black, faux-suede Love Culture boots that are falling apart but that have seen me through almost every professional win.

My team is sitting in the living room of my hotel suite, spread out between the loveseat-sized sofa and a couple of chairs. Their voices are hushed, but the occasional muffled laugh comes through the closed door. I can hear them moving around. Edmond, my head coach, double-checks his bag to make sure we are not forgetting anything. Rener, who trains me in Brazilian Jiujitsu, rolls and re-rolls the banner with my sponsors' logos that will be displayed behind me in the cage. He wants the banner to be just right, so it can be unfurled with a simple flick of the wrist. Martin, who trains me in wrestling, is unflappably calm. Justin, my training partner in judo and childhood friend, rubs his hands anxiously. They are decked out head-to-toe in my team's official walkout gear.

I open the door separating the two rooms, and everyone freezes. The room is silent.

Security knocks on the door; they're ready to escort us down.

When I walk out of the hotel room, I feel like Superman stepping out of the phone booth—chest out, cape billowing behind him. Unstoppable. Unbeatable. Only instead of an
S
, I have the UFC logo emblazoned across my chest. My mean face is on. From the minute I leave the room, I'm in fight mode.

Outside my door there are three men with earpieces tasked to take me down to my fight.

“Are you ready?” the head officer asks—he means to walk down to the arena.

“Ready,” I reply—I mean to win the fight.

Edmond glances around the room, doing a final visual sweep. He hands me my Monster headphones and I slip them on around my neck.

The head security officer leads the way. My team surrounds me, and the other two officers take up the back.

We march through service elevators into tunnels of concrete floors, fluorescent lighting, and exposed pipes. The hallways are empty, and the sounds of our feet reverberate through the corridors. We pass underground rooms where concession workers clock in and rooms where the recycling is sorted. I hear the din from the employee cafeteria. The beeping of a forklift loading pallets fades into silence as we walk through the maze toward the locker room.

As we get closer, I see more signs of life. Production staffers weave through the halls. Cameramen, more security, coaches, athletes, athletic commission members, random strangers are popping in and out of doors. An official from the state athletic commission joins us as we enter the arena. From this moment until I leave the building at the end of the night, I will never be out of her sight.

On my locker room door there's a white paper printout with my name in black letters held up by electrical tape. “Good luck,” the security officer says as I step into the windowless cinderblock room. The walls are light beige; the carpet is thin and dark. There's an athletic mat on the floor and a flat-screen TV on the wall plays the live broadcast of the undercard fights.

In other locker rooms, people bring stereos and play music. People joke and make light of things.

My locker room is serious. It is quiet. No one smiles. I don't like people telling jokes in my locker room. Now is not a time to tell jokes. From the minute we leave my hotel room, do not fuck around. The time for fucking around is over. Some serious shit is about to happen.

I am not looking to escape the pressure. I am embracing it. Pressure is what builds up in the chamber behind a bullet before it explodes out of the gun.

We walk into the locker room and settle in. My fifth cornerman, Gene LeBell, an MMA pioneer and longtime family friend, joins up with us. He sits clicking his stopwatch on and off. I lie down on the floor, my head on my bag. I close my eyes. I try to drift off to sleep.

I wake up and want to warm up, but it is too early and Edmond stops me.

“Relax, it's not time yet,” he says in his thick Armenian accent. His voice is calm and reassuring. He rubs my shoulders briefly, as if trying to knead out the excess energy surging through my body.

I want to bounce around and do something. I want to be more ready.

“Even if you're cold, you're fine,” Edmond says. “Just relax. You don't want to over warm up.”

Edmond wraps my hands as the representative from the state athletic commission watches to make sure everything about the wrapping process is legit.

Gauze first. Then the white fabric tape that makes a ripping sound as it pulls away from the roll. I watch as the tape loops hypnotically between my fingers, around my hands, and down to my wrists. Then Edmond smooths the end of the tape along my wrist and I am one step closer to the moment I have been waiting for, the moment I have been training for, the moment I have never been more ready for.

The commission official signs my wraps with a black permanent marker. I start stretching, bouncing around a bit. Edmond holds the mitts for a few punches, but stops me before it goes too long. It feels like it's not quite enough. I am itching to do more.

“Relax, relax,” he says.

Over the broadcast I can hear the crowd. As more people pour in the excitement builds until I can hear the noise pushing through the walls. The crowd's energy pulsates through the concrete into my body.

The clock ticks. Edmond sits me down on a folding chair. He leans in close.

“You are more prepared than this girl,” he says to me. “You are better in every area than she is. You have fought for this moment. You have sweated for this moment. You have busted your ass for this moment. Everything we have done has led up to right now. You are the best in the world. Now, go out there and fuck this girl up.”

Destroying my opponent is the only thing I want to do in that moment. It is the singular focus of every cell in my body.

In the hallway, I hear Burt Watson's gravelly voice. Burt is the official babysitter of UFC fighters, which means he handles so many random things that there's not a title for what he does other than to say he helps take care of us.

“We rollin', yeah!” he shouts. “This is what we do, and why we do it, baby. This is your night, your fight. Don't let them take your night, baby.” His voice bellows along the corridor as he walks me out. I get excited.

My challenger always comes out first. I can't see her, but I hear her lame music blasting throughout the arena. I immediately hate her walkout song.

I hear the audience react to her. In the shadow of the tunnel, I can feel their applause pounding the air, but I know that their reaction to me is going to explode through the arena. People are going to lose their goddamn minds when I walk out. I can almost feel their roar in my bones, and I know that the noise will rattle my challenger.

Edmond presses my face hard. He rubs my ears and nose. My face tenses, preparing for possible impact. He pulls my hair back tighter on my head. My scalp tingles. My eyes widen. I am awake. I am alert. I am ready.

We get our cue. Security flanks me. My corner walks a step behind me.

Joan Jett's fierce guitar chords send a charge through me and, as “Bad Reputation” blares, I storm through the hallway, glaring straight ahead.

The crowd roars when I step out, but it is like the volume and brightness of everything around me has been turned down. I can see nothing but what is right ahead of me, the path to the cage.

At the steps of the Octagon I remove my headphones, take off the battle boots. I take off my hoodie, my T-shirt, my sweats. My corner helps me because it can be hard to remove a layer of clothes when your hands are taped and in padded gloves.

Edmond pats me down with a towel. I hug each member of my corner. Rener. “Uncle” Gene. Martin. Justin. Edmond kisses me on the cheek. We hug. Edmond pops my mouth guard in. I take a sip of water. Stitch Duran, my cutman, wipes my face with Vaseline and steps aside.

I hold out my arms and an official pats me down to make sure I don't have anything hidden on me. He runs his hands behind my ears, up my hair, and into the tight bun. He has me open my mouth. He checks my gloves. He directs me up the stairs.

I bow when I enter the cage, a slight nod that is a habit from my judo days. I stomp my left foot twice. Then my right. I jump and stomp them both. I walk toward my corner. I shake my arms. I slap my right shoulder, then my left, then my thighs. I touch the ground. My corner unfurls my sponsorship banner behind me. I bounce from foot to foot. I squat and pop back up. I stomp my feet once more. Then I stop.

The moment has arrived. My body is relaxed yet hyper-alert, ready to act and react. My senses are heightened. I am overcome with a single desire—to win. It is simply a matter of win or die. I feel as if I was just here, in this moment, in this cage, as if the time that has separated this fight from my last fight did not exist. My brain reverts to fight mode, and I enter a zone where nothing but fighting has ever existed.

I stare across the cage.

UFC announcer Bruce Buffer comes to the center of the cage. Bruce is the best in the game, but when he looks toward my opponent's corner all I hear is, “Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah.” Then he turns toward my corner and says, “Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah.”

I see the other girl. I lock in on her. I always try to make eye contact. Sometimes, she looks away.

I want her to look at me.

I want her to stare me in the eye. I want her to see that I have no fear. I want her to know she stands no chance. I want her to be scared. I want her to know she is going to lose.

The referee looks at my opponent and asks, “Are you ready?”

She nods.

He points to me.

“Are you ready?”

I nod and think,
Born that way.

And then we begin.

A lot of people get self-conscious about not being ready before a fight. They walk out feeling cold and unprepared, believing that feeling will disappear if they could warm up a little bit more. It gets into their head.