Mixed martial artist Michelle Waterson. (Provided by UFC)
Michelle Waterson may be the fresh face in Ultimate Fighting Championship when she makes her promotional debut Sunday, but she’s hardly a newcomer to the sport of mixed martial arts.
Nicknamed “The Karate Hottie” — a moniker that stuck from her days as a 19-year-old Hooters waitress — Waterson was the Invicta FC atomweight champion from April 2013 to December 2014, before losing via a submission hold to Herica Tiburcio.
Waterson, 29, is the latest MMA fighter from Colorado to cross over to the UFC. She moves up 10 pounds to the 115-pound strawweight division when she faces Angela Magana in UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter 21 Finale card Sunday in Las Vegas.
“It’s pretty surreal. I’ve been training really hard so I just try and keep that in the back of my head that I know that this is where I belong and no one is going to take me from my spot,” Waterson (12-4) said in a video interview with UFC Thursday. “Angela’s been fighting as long as I have. I think it’s a great matchup for my first fight in the UFC.”
In an interview with Sherdog.com, she admitted that moving up in weight has been “a relief” since she doesn’t have to cut weight any more.
Born in Colorado Springs and raised in Aurora where she graduated from Aurora Central High School, Waterson’s route to the cage came about through another Denver-area star.
“When I was in college, I got a job being a ring girl and I met Donald Cerrone through that. And I told him I was interested in doing martial arts. He just kind of looked at me funny,” she said in a 2014 interview with Invicta. “… Some card fell through so he came to my work and said, ‘If you’re serious about fighting, get your ass in the gym.’ “
Flash forward eight years, she now trains out of Jackson’s Martial Arts in Albuquerque, N.M., same as Cerrone. Waterson’s signing is part of UFC’s effort to grow its burgeoning women’s MMA reach. The strawweight division was launched last December, becoming the second weight class in the UFC in which women can compete.
The Ultimate Fighter 21 Finale takes place at 7 p.m. on Fox Sports 1.
