This Saturday night, one of the most important nights in Irish Mixed Martial Arts History will take place. British Mixed Martial arts promoter BAMMA will be making their Irish debut at the Three Arena in front of over six thousand Irish fans.
Most people will be familiar with the UFC. The UFC is the top tier in MMA Promotion. For fighters to get to the UFC, they first need to prove themselves on the regional promotions, something that Irish fighters have been lacking since Cage Warriors took a very unscheduled sabbatical last year. This is why the visit of BAMMA to Irish shores this Saturday is a very important event. It gives a platform for up and coming fighters to showcase their talents and prove they are among the elite in the sport of Mixed Martial Arts.
One of those up and coming fighters is Ireland’s very own Catherine ‘The Alpha Female’ Costigan. Fighting out of her own gym Pankration Kickboxing Academy in her hometown of Co.Limerick. Catherine will be making her BAMMA Debut in the Atomweight division this Saturday night when she takes on Norway’s Celine Haga. I caught up with Catherine to get an insight into her training camp for her fight with Haga, reflection on her first professional loss of her career against Amber Brown and her experience in Invicta FC. We also discussed the Irish MMA Scene, Cris Cyborg and why it is she fights.
On her fight camp for BAMMA 22 in her own words, “This one was much better, the last one, I won’t say too much about it but it was one of the worst camps we ever had for certain reasons, a lot to do with travelling twice to Vegas, arranging medicals and visas’. Something Catherine said that was nobody’s fault just ‘things you have to do if you want to fight in Las Vegas.” Catherine was originally scheduled to fight Simona Soukupova on Saturday night but Simona was forced to pull out with an injury with only a couple of weeks to go to the fight. Thankfully Celine Haga stepped up and will fight the Limerick native. I asked Catherine did she have to change up her fight camp to prepare for her new opponent. “You always will have to change one or two things that you would think would work better to defeat that opponent but I always generally look at how opponents would try to defeat me and to try block that”.
As for Celine Haga, Catherine speaks confidently about her new opponent and what she is capable of. “Celine was always on my radar and was a person I asked on many occasions to fight in Cage Warriors.” Despite her confidence, The Alpha Female does respect her opponents capabilities and is not expecting to walk through her.
Celine trains at the highly respected Jacksons Wink Gym in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The home of former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones, Holly Holm and Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone. “I have six thousand fans coming and at the end of the day, I am not letting them down.” Catherine believes that even though she has a multi fight deal with Invicta FC, she has to earn her shot back with them and that this Saturday night is the perfect way to do it. “I lost and now I need to do something very positive within my career that makes them want to bring me back”
Catherine is coming into this fight off the first professional loss of her career against Amber Brown at Invicta FC in July this year. Despite losing her Invicta FC debut, Catherine is full of positives about the whole experience.“I met loads of wonderful people, learned about what it is like to train and fight in America, it has fired me up”. Catherine explained to me how she had to go to Vegas twice for medicals, visas and her Nevada State Athletic Commission license and how that did take away from the whole experience,“You could write a book on all the stuff that happened”. But despite it all, Catherine remained positive especially now that she has all the documents she will need to continue to fight in the States and won’t have to go through all that again.
The headliner of the Invicta FC card in July that Catherine fought on was Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Justino. Cyborg would be the top draw right now in Invicta FC, a lot of people believe she may be the only woman on the planet who would be able to beat UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey. I asked Catherine, having met Cyborg, does she think she can make the 135lb’s limit to fight Ronda Rousey and how will that fight go. “I think she can do it, on the day of the weigh in, she was down in the pool teaching a class, if she was cutting weight so intensively she wouldn’t be down teaching a class, they are just doing it bit by bit bringing her down, the Nevada Commission wants reports on her weight to make sure its being done safely, it will take time, without this Cyborg doesn’t have a true test, I really think it will be an amazing fight, and one that the whole world will want to see.” On who wins Catherine reckons “ she (Cyborg) will give Ronda problems on the feet, but I believe Ronda will win, I have trained with Olympic athletes and their desire is way different than that of a MMA Fighter. I trained with Sophie Cox and she was still going strong after six hours when I was on the floor nearly dead”
I asked Catherine why it is that she does what she does. “I want to have a genuine impact on the kids I teach from four up at Pankration, all I want to do is look back and just be able to be proud of what I achieved, not my win or loss record, My main reason for doing this is showing other women what they can do in life, be it fighting or coming on my mats and training all the time, and just looking at different ways they can carry themselves be it in work or normal life, Martial Arts is a great way of showing your reflection, not many things in life will show you that, I always chased my dreams, I never believed in can’t”
On the future, the natural question, is the UFC’s 115lb’s Strawweight division an end goal? “I have always been weary about moving up to 115lb’s, how will it suit my health, no matter what I suffered my first defeat and it was bloody awful and I don’t want to be setting myself for that, no matter how appealing the UFC and making money is, I really want to win a world title at atom-weight, thats my dream and I was so close in Cage Warriors, or at least get that fight, and to enjoy my experience of fighting and not look back thinking I should have taken this fight or that one.”
Fantastic insight into Catherine's training camp.
Originally posted on the 16th of September 2015 on The MMA Andy Blog.