There’s a $2,000 prize, and my family could really use the money. This would allow me to afford my schoolbooks and a few other purchases, which has been a budgetary topic as of late. If there’s an opportunity for me to help out my parents financially, there’s no way in hell I’m going to pass it up. It’s not like I haven’t been training. I can do this.
“Listen to me.” His eyes narrow, his brow raised. “You need more training and more experience. The girl you’d be up against has a lot more of both than you do.”
Most of the fighters that will compete in that event have fought tons of amateur fights—I’d have only fought in one. But even though I understand his rationale, I can’t fathom not doing it. “Once you go pro—you don’t get to come back,” my coach warns, his eyes locked on mine.
“That’s good then,” I reply. “Because I have no intention of ever going back.”
The fight is going to be on June 30 in Corpus Christi, Texas, against Jordan Gaza, a professional Mixed Martial Arts fighter. I train harder than ever, on most days dedicating five to six hours to the gym. I take my cardio to new levels—if I can’t hear my own breathlessness, I know I’m not working hard enough. I haul heavier weights. I eat cleaner. I sleep more. I start sparring with a training partner, Katia. She keeps me on my toes and pushes me to my edge. I am getting stronger with every session. A few days before the fight I go into the cage. The coach instructs five other fighters to take turns sparring with me—they’re told to fight at 100 percent. I’m not afraid of this barrage. I am ready. This is it: if I can work through these challenges, this crazy matrix of unpredictability, one opponent at a time, I’m ready.
“Come on, hit me as hard as you can!” I scream. Don’t see my gender. See my power. They come at me, one by one. Each fighter has a signature. I try to identify and lock on to it early, to learn quickly what I’m up against. These guys are strong and way more experienced, but I keep up. I hold my own. I fight back and I fight back hard. I make a decision to throw my whole body, brain, and spirit into every single strike. I’m drunk on the certitude that I can fight back. That I will always fight back.
With every hit, I reclaim my power.
With every evasion, I protect myself.
I’m in Texas. I’m so excited to be here, I don’t even know what to do with myself. I feel the need to do this on my own and have left my parents at home. I don’t even have a coach with me (he stayed back in protest); it’s just one other teammate with me, and I barely know her. Usually, fighters come with a whole team of people—their “corners.” But I’m here pretty much solo.
The day before the fight I walk the streets of Corpus Christi looking for a fight outfit and a place to braid my hair, amped on adrenaline but also dehydrated from the grueling process of having to make weight at 115 pounds. I weigh in and am cleared to eat! I head straight to Hooters with my teammate and we gorge on chicken wings and fries dripping with ranch dressing. That night in the hotel room we go to sleep with full bellies and high hopes.
On fight day, I wake up smiling.
There’s a mass of people in the audience, the hum of their roars like the sound of the ocean. This is wild. I can’t believe I’m even here. It’s at once surreal, thrilling, and a teeny bit scary. My stomach feels like I’ve been on a roller coaster. My opponent is a high-level martial arts belt holder and a native Texan, so I’m in enemy territory, a major handicap already. She’s wearing a hot-pink tank top and has colorful neon threads woven into her long braids.
I’ve wrapped my left hand first because someone told me it was good luck, and I’ve made a mental note to always do it this way going forward. Moments before we start I say an athlete’s prayer that Mom texted me last night:
Lord, please clear my head of all distractions
And my heart of burdens I may bear,
So I may perform my very best,
Knowing you’ll always be there.
Please lift me up before the moment,
So through your eyes may I see,
And have a clearer understanding,
As the game unfolds before me.
With great courage I will meet this challenge,
As you would have me do,
But keep me humble and remind me,
That my strength comes from knowing you.
Then when all eyes are upon me,
At the end of this game,
I will turn their eyes to you, oh Lord,
And to the glory of your name.
Amen.
Even though I am nervous as hell, the singularity of the moment grabs me. I’ll have the chance to do this only once, I say to myself. To be a first-time professional fighter. And the force of that awareness fuels my strength and turns me into an impassioned machine with one goal: I have to beat this girl.
Our bodies lock in battle, brute force shifting back and forth between us. The cold metal pattern of the black cage presses against my skin each time as she pins me to it. She fights hard. But I come back harder. Still, though, I can’t get her to tap out. We remain in this loop for what feels like forever, fighting for the power, refusing to give up. I start to understand that fighting is as much mental as it is physical, that having the psychological strength to withstand pain is just as crucial as being able to knock someone out. That fighting is about strength, but it’s also about endurance, and throughout the rounds I fully commit to my own stubbornness. At times, I use both of my legs to wrap around her lower body, so that even though she’s on top of me, she’s in a locked position and can barely move. When she has me pinned, I strike hard into her ribs. After a while, I can tell she’s starting to tire. She’s slowing down. She’s not initiating as much anymore.
I call on all my fury. I get even angrier. I call up more strength. I put in more fire. I rally every scrap of rage that I’ve dragged around all these years, and with the force of both my marred history and my mounting potential I fight to the end.
And I win. Three rounds, three minutes each.
It takes me a moment to comprehend what’s actually happened. “Paige VanZant!”
When I hear my name called out, it doesn’t register right away. I’m in a daze, trying to gather my bearings. My body is pulsing with something new, as if I have tipped the scale of my soul somehow.
The ref is standing between us, holding our hands, mine to the sky.
And that is the moment I know that I’ve risen.
I will get MY RESPECT
or I will die.
—Ken Shamrock
BORN TO FIGHT
On the drive back to Reno, I watch the gray of the highway grow longer behind me and I think about the win. I have just won my first-ever professional fight; the adrenaline is still buzzing and the word “professional” echoes loudly in me now. What if I could really do this? Against all the odds, I came out and won. Hell, maybe I took the fight just to prove the vehement warnings of my coach wrong, but I think there was more to it. My spirit is dizzy on victory, and my mind surges with possibility. What if I’m destined to fight? These flashes of inspiration start to help me connect the dots of my life. I start thinking about where I’ve come from, my family’s move, the crawling and clawing to survive, and I am overcome with a hunger to fight more. I realize that I’ve won; I’ve kicked the shit out of what was expected of me. I can rebuild a whole identity, a whole career, based on the power of strength. A life dedicated to the mastery of fighting back.
My dad and I sit down and have an actual meeting. He’s pumped. This is basically his dream come true, to really be back in the ring, so to speak. “You need to strike while the iron is hot,” he says assuredly. “If you’re serious about this, you have to start fast and go full force. This is the time in your life to really get after something.” I know he knows what he’s talking about, and I suddenly feel lucky and grateful to have someone like him in my corner.
I keep training, but with a new clarity: I need to up my game. If I want to be a really good freestyle fighter, I need
to be smart, but fast enough to act on my strategy; I need to be versatile, but savvy and selective regarding which skill to call on; I need to have stamina, but know how to pace myself for the long game. My cardio needs to be at superhero level, my grip stubborn, my confidence unshakable, my attitude positive.
But the more I train, the more I feel limited in Reno, since there aren’t any good pro gyms around. I have this itching feeling that I need to go where the action is. I know this for sure: if you want to be a lion, you train at the Lion’s Den—but if you want to be a professional fighter, you have to go to Las Vegas, the fight capital of the world. I imagine Las Vegas as a kaleidoscopic extravaganza of everything, a motherland of extreme excess, a twenty-four-hour playground built on chasing thrills. Life in Vegas probably feels electric, like time unfolding in blasts instead of moments. Big personalities with even bigger dreams. Loud music and bass, a vibration of revelry and the perfect backdrop for all varieties of debauchery. And because Vegas is such a popular tourist destination, people are there from everywhere. The whole attitude on the Vegas fight scene is different. There, fighters don’t just train—they self-cultivate.
“I’m moving,” I announce one night at dinner. Mom and Dad both look up, exchange a glance, and wait for me to speak again. “To Las Vegas,” I add. Dad narrows his eyes to zoom in on me, to feel me out.
“How can we help, honey?” my mom asks. Just as I slip more and more into my desire to be a fighter, so do my parents. They have my back and are the most loving and supportive people in my corner, as they’ve always been. All the fear and concern they were harboring about me now starts to soften into a loving admiration. Into respect. They are totally with me. They agree to help with moving costs and even chip in for my rent in Las Vegas, which I know is a big ask. They are somewhat more stable than they were when we first got to Reno, but millionaires they are not. But they’ve always been action-oriented supporters, and my move to the fight capital of the world is possible only through their unflinching loyalty and generosity. My dad is so glad to finally have his little ass-kicker back.
Saying good-bye to Alexa is harder than we both imagined. She’s been the truest friend I have had as an adult, and the thought of sacrificing that for Vegas feels daunting.
“Stop being such a baby,” I joke to her when I see her eyes well up with tears, which of course causes mine to do the same. I’m not particularly ready to say good-bye to her, but I’ve got my eye on the prize now, and I know it’s not going to happen without a fair share of struggle.
I haven’t given enough thought to where exactly I will live in Vegas, but then it occurs to me that I have a very old friend, Colby, who lives there with her family. This was a girl who knew me at my best, who saw me grind out auditions at age ten like a boss, who knew me before all the nastiness and drama happened. Colby’s presence in Las Vegas gives me a sense of comfort, an anchor of familiarity.
“Can I stay with you while I figure out where to live?” I ask her on the phone one day.
“You can stay as long as you need to,” she says, and she means it, because it’s with her and her family that I stay for three months when I first arrive in Vegas. From the moment I get there, they take me in as one of their own without batting an eyelash. They make sure I have everything I need and include me in all their family meals and church-goings; they even set up a bedroom for me. At one point, when my back goes out, Colby’s mom, Gaylinn, springs into action to help. Their collective sweetness and compassion feels angelic, and I settle into Vegas easier knowing there are people on whom I can count.
Colby knows I’m strapped for cash. She also knows how badly I want to be a fighter. She and her family brainstorm ways for me to make some extra money, and they eventually convince their church to give me some work. The church isn’t officially hiring, but the board agrees to give me a job as a lunch lady anyway. I work every aspect of the kitchen, from prepping and cooking to serving a bunch of older ladies and happy kids. Everyone is gracious and kind, so the work is always a pleasure. I enjoy the mechanics of the kitchen and lose myself in the creative space of meal making. I play with spices, herbs, smells, and flavors, welcome sensory stimulation and a quiet refuge from the intensity of the rest of my life. Even though we make only basic comfort foods like pizza and tater tots, I love working with my hands and nailing the flavor profiles.
Thanks to the generosity of Colby’s family, I’m able to save every penny I make at the church and train my ass off. In the course of a few months, I try out four or five different local MMA gyms that Dad suggests, but I never really connect with anyone in particular at any of them. No one takes me seriously either. I’m brand-new; I’m a 1-0 pro out of Reno, Nevada, with two fights total in my career. People mostly just look over my head. Everyone is busy doing his own thing, and no one really seems to take any interest in me. Which is fine, because I know what I need to be working on—wrestling, boxing, jujitsu, Muay Thai—and I make sure to get them all covered. Each one has its own style and unique something. I love the immediacy of wrestling, how you’re all up in someone’s personal space with the sheer force and pressure driving. I love how boxing demands agility and coordination. I love grappling on the ground for jujitsu, and I love the lethal dance of striking and clinching that comes with Muay Thai. No matter where I am training, I always aim to have a morning practice, an afternoon practice, and an evening practice, each hour-long session focused on one of the different martial arts. Between that, a lot of cardio and weight training. I’m doing a lot.
I can’t live with Colby’s family forever, so I scrape together what I have saved from work and what my parents chip in for me to move into an apartment of my own. It’ll require living with a roommate, but it feels like a healthy, independent step. One day at the gym I run into Catherine, someone I knew from Reno who apparently just moved to Vegas and is looking for a roommate. We’ve never been close, but we decide to move in together to make ends meet. At first, I’m excited about the prospect of living with a fellow fighter. I hope that we can bond and maybe she can share some wisdom with me or knowledge that I can learn from—but sadly, she turns out to be a terrible roommate. She has sleazy guys slinking around our tiny apartment all the time, and she’s constantly late with rent. It’s better than being alone, but just barely. “Catherine, if you’re going to finish my milk every two days, can you at least sometimes buy a carton of it yourself?” is something I find myself regularly saying to her.
For my fighting career to evolve, I need more support outside the cage. I need someone to help me find and secure fights. I do a little bit of Internet research, which leads me to Max. He says he can help me pick up some fights, so I begin a casual correspondence. Not much comes of it, until I get the call about my second pro fight.
“We need a nickname for you,” Max (whom at this point I have never met) says in an email. The whole nickname thing is just part of the theater that comes with MMA. It helps fighters develop personas, and it keeps things playful with the crowd.
I call up my dad; together we google fighter name ideas and come across “Twelve-Gauge Paige.” As a country girl, I know it’s the one.
If I win this one, my second pro fight, I’m officially on the path. My conditioning is more advanced than ever, and I’m feeling very strong. I go into the fight knowing how bad I need to win it. Colby’s brother Bryce drives me to the airport super early to make sure I don’t miss my flight to Fort Worth, Texas.
The event is called Premier Fight Series 2, and this time I face off with Amber “The Apex Predator” Stautzenberger, who is making her own professional MMA debut. She’s taller and has longer limbs, so it’s crucial that I tie her up fast and keep our bodies close. Otherwise, she’ll try to use her length on me and hammer me with punches and kicks, assets from her jujitsu roots. She’s a talented fighter, but there’s something bubbling in me that squelches any sense of self-doubt.
At one point, she’s on top and has me pinned good. I have to get creative and fas
t. Our feet are so close to the cage that I use mine to push off, which gives me just enough leverage to wiggle out from under her, a move that amazes the crowd. I snap into offense. When we’re standing, we trade lots of close-range knees, but I do everything I can to close the distance quickly. I have to direct the fight to keep it where I want it. And no matter what happens, I don’t submit. That’s my bottom line.
We get right back into that stubborn embrace at the top of round 3 and I’m still driving. More than anything it’s a wrestling match right now. I mount her and she throws me off, but I land into a guillotine. She throws punches to my ribs, but I don’t even feel them. And with thirty seconds still left, I know I’ve won even before it’s made official.
It’s as if every win reignites a new part of me, and each fight gives me another notch of certainty: This is what I am meant for. This is who I am. It feels like every moment of my life has built on itself and maybe this was God’s plan for me all along: to endure all the pain so that the triumph would taste that much sweeter; to struggle as a means to push further. The revelation hits like fireworks or a bolt of lightning. My pain is my path.
One day I get a message on social media from a name I have never before seen. I’m always wary of this kind of stuff, so I ignore it for the first few days. But then I get another one. It’s from a fight promoter with Invicta Fighting Championships, the biggest all-women mixed martial arts league there is. They want me to sign a four-fight contract. I’m psyched. Fighting in a league of this caliber means I’m not out there in the world on my own. It means I officially am part of a posse; it means I’ll have a trajectory. It means I’ll have fights lined up regularly! Life suddenly starts to feel very real.
As part of this league, I face off with Tecia Torres, a killer Muay Thai fighter who’s as fast as she is strong, and who is probably more technically advanced than me. The fight goes down on a blustery January day in Kansas City, and I’m out there with one other teammate and the one coach who managed to free up some time for me. Torres does everything she can to achieve my submission: she violently chokes me out, she attempts to dislocate my elbow, and she grinds me hard into the mat with the whole weight of her body. But every time she has me pinned, I scramble, manage to break out and stand up. We’re in this cat-and-mouse game in which she definitely has the upper hand, but even so, I am making her work. I know I may not win—but I also know I’m not giving up. And the more we go at it, the clearer it becomes that the fight is hers. And yet every time I escape one of her choke holds or get back up after being thrashed hard onto the floor, the crowd goes wild in disbelief. The fact that I still believe I can do it emboldens the people.
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