Why IMMAF Matters — and How It Changed My Life

The UK can be a difficult place for female fighters to gain regular experience.

There are fewer female athletes available in each weight division, which naturally makes finding opponents more difficult. However, amateur MMA can also be treated too much like the professional game.

Some fighters and teams become focused on protecting undefeated records, avoiding difficult matchups or waiting for the “right” opponent. Pull-outs can leave athletes training for months without ever reaching the cage.

IMMAF offers something completely different.

You enter a tournament knowing that you could face several of the strongest female athletes in the world. Everyone has travelled to compete, test themselves and represent their country.

There is no carefully protected route and no expectation of an easy matchup.

It is simply country against country, athlete against athlete, with everyone prepared to put their training and ability to the test.

That is exactly what amateur MMA should be about.

My record went from 6–1 to 11–1 through two IMMAF competitions.

At the World Championships, I fought three times in less than five days. At the European Championships, I fought twice across three days.

Before competing internationally, I had sometimes waited between six months and a year for one fight.

Through IMMAF, I gained five high-level contests in two tournaments.

That amount of experience would probably have taken several more years to build through domestic competition alone.

Tournament fighting also teaches you things that a single contest cannot.

You must perform, recover and prepare to do it all over again. You may need to adjust your tactics overnight, manage injuries and emotions, make weight repeatedly and remain mentally focused while knowing another difficult opponent is waiting.

You do not have months to celebrate a victory or overanalyse your performance. You learn your lesson, recover and move forward.

That repeated cage time was priceless.

IMMAF gives amateur fighters the chance to compete on a genuine world stage.

The championships bring together national teams and athletes from across the globe. IMMAF operates international championship structures, rankings and standardised rules specifically for amateur competition.

The production, media coverage and professionalism surrounding the events are phenomenal.

You are no longer competing only in front of the people who already know you. You are performing in an international arena, representing your country and being watched by people throughout the MMA world.

The opportunity is there for you to demonstrate your ability.

The stage is yours. You just have to perform.

The lessons I learned through IMMAF will remain with me throughout my entire career.

I learned what tournament pressure feels like and how I respond when the occasion becomes bigger. I learned what my mindset needs to be before I enter the cage and how to remain focused when there are so many distractions around me.

One of the most important lessons was finding the correct balance between self-belief and respect.

You must believe completely in your ability to win. You cannot enter the cage doubting yourself or placing your opponent above you.

At the same time, you must respect the person standing opposite you. They have also trained, sacrificed and travelled to represent their country. They deserve your full attention, and underestimating them can be just as dangerous as doubting yourself.

Repeated high-level competition helped me find that balance.

Those lessons could not have been learned in the gym alone. I needed the pressure, the opponents and the cage time.

MMA is often portrayed as a violent and disrespectful sport filled with drama, rivalries and trash talk.

IMMAF showed me a different side of it.

The culture surrounding the championships celebrates sportsmanship, camaraderie and mutual respect. Everywhere you look, athletes and teams are trying to improve themselves while sharing the same intense experience.

Of course, everyone wants their country to win. When the cage door closes, both athletes are there to compete with everything they have.

But once the contest is finished, there is respect.

I have nothing but admiration for the women I competed against. They pushed me, tested me and helped me become a better fighter.

I have also met some incredible people through IMMAF and developed friendships that I believe will last forever.

The experience changed the way I view fighting.

My opponent is not my enemy. She is another athlete brave enough to stand across from me and test herself at the highest amateur level.

There is no feeling quite like representing your country.

Flying out with Team England, wearing the team kit and walking towards the cage carrying the England flag created memories I will never forget.

You are no longer competing only for yourself, your family or your gym. You feel part of something much bigger.

Winning World and European gold while representing England is the greatest achievement of my life so far.

But being part of the team meant more than winning medals.

The friendships I formed with my teammates and the incredible people who run and support the England team made the entire experience special.

You travel together, prepare together, experience the nerves together and celebrate one another’s success.

These are not just sporting memories.

This is core-memory stuff.

Competing in another country had always been a dream of mine.

MMA gave me the opportunity to travel, experience different cultures and meet people from places I may otherwise never have visited.

Coming from a small former mining village in the North East of England, there was something incredibly powerful about travelling across the world to represent my country.

It made me realise how far the sport had taken me.

For every athlete preparing to attend an IMMAF Championship, my advice is to take in the entire experience.

Naturally, you are there to win. You have trained and sacrificed with the goal of returning home with a medal.

However, the experience is bigger than your final result.

Remember the journey, the atmosphere, the teammates, the people you meet and the feeling of carrying your country’s flag.

Regardless of the result, it could become one of the greatest experiences of your life.

The later stages of the IMMAF World Championships give fighters a genuine taste of professional MMA.

The finals have the atmosphere and production of a major professional event.

There are cameras, bright lights, crowds, a huge arena, official walkouts and flames firing around you as you approach the cage.

Suddenly, it is not only about your physical and technical ability.

You must manage the occasion.

You must remain focused while cameras are following you, people are watching and the entire production is designed to make the moment feel enormous.

That experience showed me that I could perform with pressure and attention on me.

For me, it was the perfect final test before entering the professional ranks.

Once you become part of IMMAF, it is difficult to walk away.

I could happily have competed in more championships. I loved being part of the team and testing myself through tournament MMA.

However, the time has come for me to turn professional.

Although my journey as an IMMAF competitor is ending, I did not feel ready to leave Team England behind.

I now want to give something back.

My mission is to help grow the female England squad and encourage more women to take the opportunity to represent their country.

I want our next team to be the biggest female squad England has ever taken to the championships. I want the athletes to arrive believing they belong there and understanding that they are capable of winning medals.

With my stepson and several fighters from our gym also entering the international pathway, becoming a Team England Coach will be another enormous honour.

I can use the experience I gained as an athlete to help others manage the pressure, understand tournament competition and perform at their best.