After more than a year of waiting just to get a fight, and for her promotion to get back on its feet, Michelle Waterson, now finds herself the face and headliner of the relaunched Invicta Fighting Championships, the first outside promotion to air a show live on UFC Fight Pass.
Waterson (11-3), Invicta's Atomweight champion, the 105-pound weight class, headlines a Sept. 6 show from the Municipal Arena in Kansas City, where she faces Yasuko Tamada (15-8) in a five-round championship match.
A series of circumstances looks to make Waterson to "go-to" player in what is Invicta's first show since December. Since that time, most of the group's top bantamweights have moved to UFC. The group's entire strawweight division was purchased by UFC, for the fall season of The Ultimate Fighter and subsequent creation of the 115-pound class UFC champion and new full-time division.
Waterson's last fight was memorable, as it was among the best fights of 2013, men or women. Her come-from-behind armbar victory over Jessica Penne on April 5 to capture the title won several awards as best women's fight of the year. Since then, Penne moved up a weight class to get into UFC.
Waterson had fought at 115 before, and likely could have made the same move, but feels undersized against significantly bigger women who were cutting to make 115, while she could be a champion at 105, facing women her own size.
"I started out fighting at 115 actually," she said. "I feel really comfortable fighting at 105. I feel I have a lot to prove in the 105 division. I want to continue until I'm satisfied, until I conquer all I can and then I'll think about what I'll do then."
Over the past year, Waterson has had to learn patience while Invicta waited for a deal to fall into place that would make it viable to continue. Internet pay-per-view didn't work out because of crashes and issues with the pay wall. Regular pay-per-view wasn't cost-effective, particularly trying to promote with no television backing. There were different options on the table, but the Fight Pass deal, and working with the UFC, was the one that came through and seemed like the best option to provide stability for the company and visibility for its athletes.
During the year off, Waterson had a brief spot on the reality show American Ninja Warriors, and even, as a way to motivate herself to keep in shape, competed in bikini contests.
UFC brought Waterson to Las Vegas recently to begin promoting her as the headliner and the dawning of the new deal. In addition, the prior seven Invicta shows are on the Fight Pass library, and the UFC is going to try and open doors to Invicta for television deals, both domestic and overseas, that will allow the business of all women's fight cards to grow.
"Shannon was always reassuring me that something would happen, and not to worry, and when it did happen, it would be good, so I took her word for it and trusted her" said Waterson.
Over the year, Waterson had heard things, including the possibility of Invicta being on Fight Pass and working with the UFC, but never knew for sure until the announcement.
"There's always going to be rumors here and there," she said. "It was a good surprise. I'm excited that it wasn't a rumor."
She doesn't know much about Tamada. But Waterson has set her goal on finishing her Japanese opponent, who has competed in grappling since 2002 and MMA since 2005, but has never fought out of her home country.
"I've seen whatever I could find (on Tamada) on the Internet, but there's not much on her I could find, which is fine," she said. "She wants to come forward. She's an awkward southpaw.
"I really want to be able to finish her. Tamada has never been finished. But it'll be great if I end up with a win. That's fine as well."
Waterson started in martial arts at the age of ten, following in the footsteps of her older brother, but was not a fan of the early days of UFC.
She's bounced around the fight game for seven years, first getting noticed after appearing on the TV show "Fight Girls," a Muay Thai reality show on the Oxygen Network that was coached by Gina Carano, and featured current UFC fighter Felice Herrig, current Invicta fighter Miriam Nakamoto, and former Strikeforce fighter Kerry Vera, Brandon's wife, among others.
"There were five different weight classes," she said. "You fought in your weight class and whoever won got to fight in Thailand. I lost."
The experience wasn't what she expected it to be.
"It was very stressful when I went on the show," she recalled. "I went on and I thought I'd make friends for life, but it wasn't the case for me. When you incorporate cameras and having to re-say what you said, and creating drama, it's just not realistic to expect to build genuine relationships. I learned a lot about myself and how to deal with those stresses after the fact. Overall, it was a good experience."
It was off that show that she garnered recognition with the "Karate Hottie" nickname, a catchy title that belies the fact she's trained in martial arts for 18 years, is married and is the mother of a three-year-old, whcih resulted in her taking nearly two years between fights, and it's been a while since she's worked as a model.
But it was learning kickboxing that got her hooked on the MMA game.
"I really wasn't a fan until I started training kickboxing, and that's when i became intrigued by it," she said. "A lot of competitions I did were kata and point sparring. It (MMA) was something I didn't understand. Once I got a taste of it from training, I had a whole new appreciation for it.
"What I love about MMA is you have so many options," she said. "I'm about seizing the opportunity. If you don't want to stand you can go to the ground. That's what I like as opposed to Muay Thai. I like watching Muay Thai, but MMA is where my heart is now."
Waterson grew up in the Denver area, and studied a variety of martial arts like karate, wu shu, kempo and Muay Thai. She was friends with Donald Cerrone, also from Denver, who was making the move to Albuquerque to train at Greg Jackson's camp, and told her if she was serious about MMA, that was the place to be.
"I was a cheerleader in Denver," she said. "I met Donald Cerrone in Denver, and when he moved to Albuquerque, he suggested I go out there and do the same. I liked it and I stayed. That was in 2007."
She started training the ground game, and four weeks later, had her first fight, for the Ring of Fire promotion that ran in the Denver area.
"Something I love about the sport is you're never going to stop learning. I love that about MMA and learning new things every day."
At the time, women's fighting was in its infancy, but the Jackson-Winklejohn camp today has a wide assortment of younger fighters and veteran fighters for her to train with.
"We have about a half-dozen girls who are there every day," she said about her current training. "We all train together. It just depends on the day. I may get rounds with the little girls and sometimes I don't. There's me, Holly Holm, Joy Escobel, Tara LaRosa, Felice (Herrig), and a girl from Norway who came out here months ago and is now part of our team, and some other girls who are amateurs who are coming up the ranks."
Filed under: