Issue 001
March 2005
Female MMA fighter Kelli Salone talks to Hywel Teague
Female Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters are few on the ground in the UK. While Thai boxing, boxing and even sports such as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and judo contain healthy rosters of female athletes, MMA in the UK suffers from a sheer lack of numbers of female participants.
One such competitor who feels the strain of a lack of opponents is Kelli Salone. The 34-year-old, ex-professional mountain biker and motocross rider has been finding it difficult to find suitable opponents of late, despite her best efforts. “Not so long ago I was calling the guys at Cage Rage loads, and they were all ‘Yeah, we’ll see what we can do’ but I never heard back from them.”
With four years of rugby experience as well as her globetrotting career of riding anything with two wheels behind her, Kelli is obviously a natural athlete. “When I was riding, wherever I went I always took some boxing gloves with me. I was in the States training in a boxing gym when I saw some guys at the other end of the room rolling around on the floor. I found out it was MMA. When I got back to the UK, the guys at SFUK [Submission Fighting UK] gave me some contact details and I jumped straight in.”
The kind of person to give no less than 100% to her chosen sport, Kelli threw herself into her training and credits her time with the Gloucester-based Rough House team as formative in her career. “I started with Rough House and Mark Woodard, and trained with them for about a year. I got some great training there. The experience they gave me was awesome.”
Circumstances meant she had to change gyms and she began training with Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Mark Weir. “Mark is amazing and they’ve got a really close-knit team of fighters there, but it was hard for me at times. Mark did something special in letting me into the fighters’ sessions. He’s got girls who train with him but I was the only one who was in those sessions. When everyone’s busy training for a fight, it was hard to get the coaching I needed. When Mark was training for a fight as well as Matt [Ewin, one of the UK’s top middleweights], it felt like little old me by myself at times.” Pressures from work meant she had to take some time out, as travelling to Gloucester from Swindon every night was too much of a strain.
Now with a new team, Kelli is optimistic about what the future holds. “I started training with the Trojan Free Fighters in December. I’ve got Paul Sutherland [formerly of Rough House] as my MMA coach and there’s Charlie Joseph too. Plus they’re bringing over the Brazilian guy, Carlos Lemos Jr [BJJ black belt and multiple national and world champion]. I’ve not met him yet, but it’ll be interesting to see what he brings.”
Asked what she feels her new team can offer her, she responded positively. “To be honest, even though they’ve got good Thai boxers, this club focuses a lot more on BJJ than I’ve done before, and as my stand-ups always been my strong point I think it’ll really help. Also, there are some good training partners — Paul Sutherland and Cherie Buck — and they’ve got good facilities, although that doesn’t bother me, so long as I’ve got something soft to land on!
“Charlie is really keen to get me fighting in whatever comes along. Because there’s not that many fighters in the UK we’ll consider anything. Boxing, Thai boxing, whatever. Trojan has got a lot of contacts over in Holland, so there are also possibilities there too.”
Her last fight (a submission loss to top female fighter Rosi Sexton) was over a year ago, but she still thinks about it. “I think if it had been in a cage it might have gone a bit different. She kept coming forward and I was going back. I got her with a few good shots, she was staggering, but I found myself in the corner of the ring and I made the silly mistake of going to the ground with her. I was so green on the ground back then and she’s known for her grappling. I think it would go a bit different now.”
With the time she has spent away from the ring increasing, I asked what it is that inspires her to keep going. “To be honest, it just comes from within. I just love to push myself. I’ve got to keep busy with whatever comes along and hope that I get a fight. I was contacted about an all-women’s show that’s slated for sometime in August. I don’t know who they want me to fight. I’ll just have to see what comes along. I’ve had a long break from training and need to get back into it, but with the scene the way it is I just don’t know who there is for me to fight.”
