Fight Night with the wife

[KillerCrushes]

My wife belongs to the UFC Gym in an adjacent town and one of her coaches was scheduled to fight in the Gladiator Challenge at the local casino, so we decided to attend.

It wasn't a huge venue, but we had pretty good seats. I don't know the matchmaker, but even though it was an exciting, fast-paced evening, there were a LOT of really bad mismatches involving guys who appeared to have never even watched MMA before, let alone trained for it. There were multiple 1st-round stoppages in under a minute, including the 2 real pro fights. Her guy won by KO in under 40 seconds. His opponent missed with a spinning back kick and then got caught with a front push kick and a right hook that had him out before he hit the canvas.

We developed a little bit of a rapport with the guys seated near us, each giving our own analysis of what we were observing. At one point, one of the guys said to me, "Man, you should be up there! I know you could take all of those guys." (he was referring to the ones who had lost, of course)

My wife (Sandra, but I call her "Sand") and I quickly glanced at one another and then with a smile, I let our new friend know that - even though I could probably have taken a couple of them with my very tiny amount of knowledge on how to execute a couple of chokes or joint locks - *she* is actually the fighter in the family. He was perfectly impressed and then they had a fun fighter-to-fighter chat going for the rest of the evening. He asked whether she was doing fights at this level or just training. She has no desire to compete in MMA, but there is zero doubt that she would've taken a majority of the guys who got beat. If you go into the Octagon with no guard and no jiu-jitsu, you're not going to beat an opponent who has both.

There was one team that was on the receiving end of the highest number of quick losses. I don't know how the "Dog/Dawg House" got involved with an event like this, but each of their participants was greatly outclassed. As best I could figure, this was a fundraiser or something for their club. Sand expressed that she'd like to volunteer to help train them for future competitions, so hopefully they will be open to accepting knowledgeable and experienced help from an outsider.

After the fights, we grabbed dinner, and then won about $250 playing blackjack, which more the covered tickets plus dinner. All-in-all, I'd say this was a darn cool evening.

[Dkid13]

How long has your wife been training? Does she go through any grading systems? My wife and I train. I intend to fight at some point. Not overly ambitious, I'm competitive and athletic but not trying to pursue a new career, just a new challenge. Wife is just enjoying the challenge of learning and training

I guess that's the risk you take with amateur comps? You're likely to get alot of mismatches as the organisers are unable to really gauge skill and ability level to match fighters properly. I went to one recently and had a similar experience with some fights quite competitive, others were hard to watch.

[desertgoodguy]

I underestimated my wifes desire and willingness to learn for a long time

As we progressed, she just kept getting better and better to the point where she is today

Never underestimate a woman

[al89]

The lowest level of MMA and boxing is filled with "tomato cans" who have hardly any skills and are just there to pad the records of some other guys. A female fighter who put the time and money into her training and skills could definitely beat some male pro fighters of her size at this low level.

Still, it wouldn't be wise to match up women with inexperienced pros because some men are just athletic freaks and learn quickly and could really hurt women even if they have just little training. Young Jon Jones was slamming men and throwing them around after learning techniques by watching YouTube videos, Conor McGregor was knocking out people when he barely knew what jiu jitsu is etc. So it's not always a guarantee that a skilled female fighter would beat a relatively unexperienced male, but in many cases she definitely could.

[KillerCrushes]

Originally Posted by Dkid13 [Only Registered Users Can See LinksClick Here To Register]

How long has your wife been training? Does she go through any grading systems? My wife and I train. I intend to fight at some point. Not overly ambitious, I'm competitive and athletic but not trying to pursue a new career, just a new challenge. Wife is just enjoying the challenge of learning and training

I guess that's the risk you take with amateur comps? You're likely to get a lot of mismatches as the organisers are unable to really gauge skill and ability level to match fighters properly. I went to one recently and had a similar experience with some fights quite competitive, others were hard to watch.

That's cool! It takes a special mentality to make the decision to participate in an organized fight. I've wrestled before and done a tiny bit of BJJ. I could envision myself participating in organized grappling for fun, but fighting? Not a chance. You guys are a special breed and I don't believe that difference is something most fans can understand or appreciate.

Sand started judo when she was 6, but states she was always mad that she was unable to start earlier. That's a fighter's mentality. She went through grading as a junior, but not as an adult. For her, what matters is the training and the knowledge, not the recognition or advancement. She tells me that she never boxed before college, but it was very natural for her.

Added after 10 minutes:

Originally Posted by desertgoodguy [Only Registered Users Can See LinksClick Here To Register]

I underestimated my wifes desire and willingness to learn for a long time

As we progressed, she just kept getting better and better to the point where she is today

Never underestimate a woman

Before we actually began dating, she did tell me she had several years of training in judo, but downplayed the boxing and BJJ. And since I didn't know much about judo, I laughed at it a lot. Oops.

[desertgoodguy]

Originally Posted by KillerCrushes [Only Registered Users Can See LinksClick Here To Register]

That's cool! It takes a special mentality to make the decision to participate in an organized fight. I've wrestled before and done a tiny bit of BJJ. I could envision myself participating in organized grappling for fun, but fighting? Not a chance. You guys are a special breed and I don't believe that difference is something most fans can understand or appreciate.

Sand started judo when she was 6, but states she was always mad that she was unable to start earlier. That's a fighter's mentality. She went through grading as a junior, but not as an adult. For her, what matters is the training and the knowledge, not the recognition or advancement. She tells me that she never boxed before college, but it was very natural for her.

Added after 10 minutes:





Before we actually began dating, she did tell me she had several years of training in judo, but downplayed the boxing and BJJ. And since I didn't know much about judo, I laughed at it a lot. Oops.

That was the amazing thing about my wife

She claims that she never wrestled before we got married, yet at times early on she would me up with holds that showed she had some background although she denied it

[mxboxer]

IMHO, it is time to revive this thread.

Usually my wife and I end up mixing wrestling and marital intimacy but recently something a little different happened.
We were getting undressed for bed and she started some play fighting with me. Mostly light punches which I parried without any trouble. Clearly she was having some fun and wanted to continue. So I retrieved some boxing gloves and we stripped down. She was wearing bikini underwear and I was suitably wearing boxers. She was wearing a rather stiff 6 oz glove and I was wearing 12 oz gloves. So we began to lightly spar, mostly fooling around. I threw some easy to block jabs to her nose and left hooks to her sides which she blocked with no trouble. She was throwing some harder punches which I similarly blocked. Jabs to the head, attempted uppercuts to the abs, straight rights to the chest. All of which I can easily block or absorb.

So we started throwing punches faster and I forgot that we were playing. I threw a left uppercut into her abs. The sound of the punch hitting her abs was noticeable. A loud crisp "SMACK". I nearly shit my self. One thing you don't want to do is hurt your wife when your fighting. All wrestling and boxing can easily be lost by such a mistake.
She stood there awhile and recomposed her self. Fortunately for me, she kept her abs tense all the time while we were boxing and it did no damage. Only distracted her so she needed to recompose herself. I checked if she was OK and she wanted to continue. Fine with me. So we started again.

Nothing really changed in our sparring other than she was throwing punches a little harder and a little more often to my face. Nothing I can't handle and it was fun to see her get into the fight. She throws a sequence of lefts and rights to my face and I cover up a bit and BAM. Right uppercut between my guard into my solar plexus. I'm a little stunned but standing and then it started. It felt like my insides were put through a mixmaster. Down to my knees and curled up in a ball. My wife was a little frightened. She dropped down and wanted to make sure that I was OK.

I'm not sure how long it took for me to really recover, but that was it for the night. She was really sorry but I told her It was OK. Actually, I loved it that she could do this. She's strong as a bull (not as strong as me by far, but stronger than most men in the gym.) and this time she dropped me.

This makes fighting with her a little more exciting. I just wish we could do this everyday.

BTW, as part of our weight training, we use punches to the abs. It really does work to make them tougher and more muscular.

The blue gloves are my 12 oz, the green are her 6 oz and the bikini is exactly what she wore.