“They referred to our clothes as costumes,” Roxanne Modafferi discusses the growth of women’s MMA over the past 20 years
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Roxanne Modafferi
When it’s all said and done and UFC Flyweight Roxanne Modafferi will write the final chapter of her nearly two-decade MMA career as she fights her last fight against Casey O’Neill at UFC 271, she will leave no stones unturned and looking back she must be proud of the career she had whilst living the life the way she wanted when it wasn’t conventional for a woman to do so back when she began her fighter’s journey.
Roxanne Modafferi will touch a feat no other female mixed martial artist is even close to doing so, fight for the 50th straight time in her professional MMA career. Modafferi will now hang her gloves at the age of 39 and will leave the sport better knowing that she was no less than a pioneer for her contribution to women’s combat sports.
Roxanne Modafferi recalls when female fight gears were considered as “costumes” in Japan back in 2003
In her recent media appearance, giving an interview on The S.W.A.T MMA Podcast, Roxanne Modafferi talked about what it was like for women to step inside an MMA cage back when she started at Japanese MMA Promotion Smackgirl back in November of 2003.
“Back in the day female fighters were a different category,” says Modafferi. “They referred to our clothes as costumes rather than fight clothes [or gears] which confused me because they’re speaking in Japanese like ‘Kosuchūmu a Doko desu ka’ like I don’t understand.”
“I do believe that female fighters were lower level than men at the time you know but it was like even more so and kind of specific fans just for them,” continues Modafferi. “It was more entertainment than sports…”
“After like a decade, fighters like Megumi Fuji started having fights in Shooto and more like high-level male organisations and then it started like females started being accepted as actual athletes you know so that’s where we are now… I believe they’re still [treated like] amateurs out of it and still kind of like there’s more entertainment aspect of it but now females are recognized as athletes that’s for sure,“ Modafferi concluded.
In her career, Roxanne Modafferi had significant wins over Valerie Letourneau, Andrea Lee, Antonina Shevchenko, and Maycee Barber. Where do you put Modafferi amongst the most recognizable faces of the women’s MMA? For sure she has an amusing and optimistic personality too that gave her the nickname “The Happy Warrior.”
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Abhai Singh Tanwar
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