Michelle Waterson-Gomez In Jiu Jitsu Gear Celebrates Black Belt

Former UFC fighter Michelle Waterson-Gomez is celebrating a major milestone in her career: getting her black belt in Jiu Jitsu after years of training. Waterson-Gomez, 38, shared a video of herself wearing a black gi, looking overwhelmed with emotion as the belt was tied around her waist. “Thank you to my family for supporting me. Thank you to my friends and teammates for making me resilient and keeping me hungry. I know getting my black belt is just the beginning and I can’t wait to see what the future holds!!! Let’s go!!!” she captioned the post. Here’s how the fighter stays strong and fit enough to crush goal after goal.

1. Ring Girl To Fighter

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Waterson-Gomez fell in love with Muay Thai after a trip to Thailand in college. “I got the opportunity to be a ring girl, and it was something fun to do and make some extra cash,” she told ESPN. “I remember watching these MMA fights and saying, ‘Hey, I think I’d rather be inside the Octagon than out.’ One of the fighters — he’s a really big name now in UFC, Donald Cerrone — overheard me and came to my work because they needed another girl for a fight. He left a note for me that said, ‘If you’re serious about training, get your butt in the gym.’ I haven’t looked back since.”

2. Embracing Vulnerability

Waterson-Gomez gains strength from accepting weakness. “Accepting your vulnerability is an important part of being able to move past adversity,” she told REORG. “You get strength from realizing you can carry on whatever bad stuff is thrown at you. The strongest people I know are not like that because they don’t have any weaknesses, they are like that because they accept how they are and just keep trucking forward.”

3. Rest Is Important

Waterson-Gomez knows how important sleep and recovery is. “Don’t forget to rest,” she told AskMen. “Sleep and rest days are super important to recovery so don’t neglect those days by trying to overdo it on workouts. Recovery allows your body to repair and become stronger.”

4. Community Love

Waterson-Gomez is grateful for her team. “It is also good to accept the importance of a supportive community around us,” she told REORG. “I’ve been at Jackson Wink since the start of my career and it is like a second family. It’s a sanctuary for me, whenever I’m having a bad day and don’t want to talk to anyone, I can just go and hang out and train and be around cool people that have my back.”

5. Role Model

Waterson-Gomez’s daughter Araya has never missed a fight. “Sometimes people raise their eyebrows when they find out that my daughter comes to see me fight,” she told REORG. “She is 11 now and has been along for the ride even before she knew about it. My first fight back after she was born I was still breastfeeding, so she needed her mom nearby. And ever since then, apart from Covid, she’s been to every fight.”

Female martial artists are so much more than performers in a fighting ring, and definitely more than just a pretty face. These women are training like athletes, and practice the skill and discipline needed to win. Vanity often goes out the window—just ask Ronda Rousey. “I can’t walk into a fight thinking, ‘Oh I need to save my moneymaker.’ I don’t care if I cut my face; I’m in there to win. You can’t walk in there scared of what might happen to you. I walk in there focused on what I have to do,” she says. So how exactly do these superstars train? Here’s how Valentina Shevchenko, Cris Cyborg, and 18 other fighters approach battle and wellness.

1. Felice Herrig

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American kickboxer Felice Herrig follows a healthy diet that encourages fat loss and muscle growth. “I’ve always been really healthy and I’ve done it all,” she says. “I was a raw foodist for about 1 year and then a vegetarian for 2-3. Right now I've been working with a really well known and sought after nutritionist Fakhri Mubarak and all my meals are prepared for me by a company called Fuel-up. So everything is perfectly proportioned out for me. I’m not going to go into complete specifics about my diet because that's my little secret. But my Fakhri has based my current diet on my blood work and on getting me to the lowest weight I can be with the most amount of muscle and strength as possible, with a specific ratio of carbs, proteins and fats.”

2. Ronda Rousey

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Ronda Rousey doesn’t count calories and is very careful about where her meat and dairy is sourced. “I usually eat carbs on alternating days,” she says. “So it will usually be rice or potatoes or something like that. Pretty much I just eat until I’m full. Since I don’t eat all day my stomach has shrunk so I get full fast. So I don’t count calories at all. If I have red meat it must be ‘Grass-Finished beef’ not ‘Grass Fed.’ Grass Fed could be that they fed the cow grass ONE DAY and then fed it corn for the rest of its life – and that qualifies it to be ‘Grass Fed’. Grass-Finished means it has to eat grass for at least 80 percent of its lifetime … so it has to be very high quality. I also try to eat everything organic, even when I eat dairy.”

3. Alexa Grasso

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Alexa Grasso believes all women should learn to fight. “I saw the MMA belt that I had won, how responsible I became, the discipline I acquired, the combinations that I connected, that security I had when I tried to try it and that desire to want to do it again but much better,” she says. “A high impact sport like this is what changed my life. And I know that although it is a relatively new sport, all women should practice it. It feels like the closest thing to what it would be like to fight for your life, so that you can react correctly in dangerous situations.”

4. Valentina Shevchenko

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UFC and MMA star Valentina Shevchenko trains 2-3 hours every day. "Fighters, they have to know how to box, have to know how to kick, how to wrestle, how to grapple, everything," she says. "They have to do it, not just okay, they have to do it in perfection. For me, martial arts, it's kind of [the] same as religion, because you have to believe in what you are doing and your temple is your dream.”

5. Cris Cyborg

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MMA champion Cris Cyborg says mental preparation is a big part of her training. “I believe that everything happens for a reason, so putting in the work as well just helps you in the process,” she says. “When I step into the ring, I know that I have done everything in my power to be prepared for the fight, and I give it my all. If I don’t happen to win, that’s ok too. I will see where I need to improve and continue to train on that until I am better at it, and so I am stronger for the next challenge.”

6. Cynthia Rothrock

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Veteran martial arts star Cynthia Rothrock says beginners should be prepared to put the work in if they want to succeed. “When you take a martial art, try to learn the true art and keep the tradition," she says. “Each style has something different to offer. I started at 13 years old. I had some friends in tang soo do, so I gave it a try. When I was younger, I tried everything — piano, music lessons, other sports — but the martial arts were the first thing I really stuck with… I always get nervous. It is sort of a nervous energy starting the form — but then I tune right in."

7. Gina Carano

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MMA star and actress Gina Carano’s favorite healthy meal is chicken and couscous with green beans. “When I’m home, I cook a lot of chicken or fish and wheat pasta,” she says. “When I was training to fight, literally all I ate was vegetables and white meat, then when I was done training, I’d go the complete opposite direction. I’m a lot more balanced now, and I feel a lot healthier. To be healthy and happy. If you take care of yourself you can take care of the people around you. We take health for granted.”

8. Carla Esparza

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Carla Esparza has a scientific approach to her training and diet, and is always thoroughly prepared. “I think anyone’s perfect scenario is like, boom, you walk out, one punch, knockout,” she says. “For me, I’d definitely like a chance to display all the work that I’ve been doing. I’ve been doing a lot of work in jiu jitsu, I’ve been sharpening up my striking, so I’m hoping that I can really display that, and of course, a first-round finish would be great, but just hand up. That’s the goal.”

9. Jeeja Yanin

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Jeeja Yanin has a dance background, and still practices for training. “I started when I was very young,” she says. “I took ballet for about eight years, and then went into Taekwondo, and I reached my second dan black belt at age thirteen. As of now, my son hasn’t quite gotten into martial arts yet, but I am encouraging him! I train for around two hours a day, and it’s a mix of martial arts and flexibility. I also like dance, as well, as it keeps you on your toes.”

10. Holly Holm

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Holly Holm keeps her meals light on a fight day. “[I have a] light protein, maybe fish or chicken. I always have sweet potatoes,” she says. “I might have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I might have trail mix. I like to have light proteins and good carbs. I might have some fruits. I don’t want to only do fruit because the sugar doesn’t last with you as long. I feel good when I have a good sweet potato, and nut butters and honey. I snack on stuff the whole time I’m in the locker room. I don’t want to be too full and have too much at one time, so I’ll eat little bites here and there, all the way up until about 30 to 45 minutes before the fight.”

11. Paige VanZant

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Paige VanZant is careful about her diet when she is training. “Dieting is a huge part of being any sort of professional athlete,” she says. “My husband and I love cooking and we really enjoy making healthy meals together. I like to think of myself as a chef and have competed on many cooking shows. We of course have our occasional cheat day here and there. But once we have a flight scheduled it’s down to business. Then after we fight we go a little bit crazy and eat everything in sight.”

12. Miesha Tate

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Miesha Tate swears by red meat for energy. “I like to eat red meat—it helps me keep my iron levels up,” she says. “I also eat a lot of veggies. If you’re low on calories or missing something in your diet, you can definitely feel it when you’re pushing your body to the limits. Whatever you put into your body is what you’re going to get out of it.”

13. Joanne Calderwood

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Joanne Calderwood supports her diet and training with supplements. “[For lunch] I will have Thorne’s Catalyte during training and take cod liver at lunch, which is usually the Trifecta special of the day,” she says. “Every day I do pads and our MMA pro practice. Monday, Wednesday, Friday in the afternoons I have strength and conditioning training. Saturday, I do cardio and focus on recovery. I usually have a nice meal at home – something I make in the slow cooker, usually chicken. I take a zinc supplement before bed and try to make sure I’m in bed and reading a book by 10 p.m. to get enough sleep and to wind down.”

14. Rose Namajunas

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Rose Namajunas believes in making her own food as much as possible. "You know, something like bread,” she says. “If you do it from scratch you have to make your own starter culture. That takes a week by itself. Then you have to add more flour and water to it over time. That takes another two weeks. So you shouldn't be eating bread every day. If you have a garden, you got tomatoes which we grew in the last camp. You could just eat those real easy because you can just pick it if you need it."

15. Jessica Andrade

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Jessica Andrade loves running as part of her training. “I get a rush when I’m fighting, but it was very unusual – I started to run when I moved down a weight class and got a runner’s high for the very first time,” she says. “I felt like a completely different person. Now I run every single day. It clears my head. I was so surprised how much just actual running helped my life and my well-being.”

16. Jessica Eye

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Jessica Eye believes state of mind is just as important as being physically prepared. “It all starts with the way that you think,” she says. “Your eyes wake up and your brain kicks in. Right now, because I feel like I’m in a much better mental state, my weight has been great. My training has been great. I’m smiling every day. I’m doing things I used to do that made me happy, and it makes my coaches happy. When I see them smile, it gives me the power to want to keep going and keep striving.”

17. Bruna Vargas

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Bruna Vargas used her down time to keep training and improving her skills. "I was stuck in a contract with XFC for two years, waiting for a fight that never came," she says. "It was complicated because I wanted and needed to fight, but had to wait. But I kept training, working on the things I needed to improve, like jiu-jitsu, and waited for a call. I also competed in jiu-jitsu and boxing in those two years away from MMA."

18. Diana Lee Inosanto

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Bruce Lee’s goddaughter Diana Lee Inosanto says Filipino martial arts is the bread and butter of what she does. “It was my heritage, it was my culture,” she says. “So as a little girl, my father said not only do I want you to learn how to defend yourself as a woman, or as a little girl at the time, but I also just want you to be proud and know your heritage, know your culture.”

19. Tatiana Suarez

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Tatiana Suarez is diligent about her diet and hydration. “I stay on a strict diet, and I train four to six hours a day,” she says. “I always make sure I’m fully hydrated before going into a practice. My favorite drink is BODYARMOR LYTE because it has electrolytes, is high in potassium and is low in sugar and calories, and nutrition and hydration is something that's important in fighting.”

20. Jinh Yu Frey

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Jinh Yu Frey stays focused on her health and training even when she isn’t fighting. “When I'm not fighting I [train] 4 times a week,” she says. “I’ll go to the classes at my jiu jitsu gym and do like 40 minutes of rolling and technique work but then I will also do wrestling or situational drills in the cage. A lot of times there’s fights about to happen so I'm always helping them get ready in the cage and do rounds with them. I always eat healthy, so I always try and keep lean—I don’t have a lot to lose but I do extra cardio and cut out dairy products and cheese which are high in fat, and cut down on portions too.”

UFC star Tracy Cortez has always been a force to be reckoned with in the ring, but now she’s even more focused and dedicated to the fight. Cortez, 30, shared pictures of herself wearing purple shorts and a white sports bra, lifting heavy weights at the gym. She also shared an image with the text “Welcome to my one-woman show, where you watch me do whatever I want.” Cortez overhauled her entire training and fighting regime over the last year and feels stronger than ever—here’s how she did it.

1. Training In Brazil

Cortez went to Brazil in 2023 to take her fighting to the next level. “I’ve been working on everything. Mostly I want to say just sharpening up my wrestling, keeping it sharp. My striking, I’ve been working on my striking a lot,” Cortez said during a Noche UFC Athlete Panel, via Cageside Press. “I went over to Brazil for a while, trained with the Pitbull brothers. I just grew. Got out of my comfort zone. I wanted to evolve not just as a person but as an athlete. I just felt like it was time. I’ve been really trying to evolve overall… I’m very confident in my wrestling, I’m very confident on my ground. I believe it’s pretty difficult to take me down and if you do, it’s going to be difficult to keep me down.”

2. Love For the Ring

Cortez feels a renewed love for fighting. “This year really fueled me and gave me that spark in my heart again,” she told UFC.com. “I've seen the growth not just outside the cage, but in the cage. My coaches have seen the growth, and I'm really confident in my team. I don’t believe I would be the athlete I am without them.”

3. Ready To Fight

Cortez stayed in Brazil for as long as she thought necessary. “I’ve known Patricio [Pitbull] for quite a time now. When he does come to Fight Ready, he’s such a good teacher, he’s always giving me new tools to work and to practice so I can get better,” she said during the Athlete Panel. “It kind of just hit me where I was ready to try something new, get out of my element. I shot him a message, and he told me, he said ‘come on by.’ So I went over to Brazil, stayed over there for a while, came back, told my coaches ‘hey, I’m ready to come back, now it’s time.'”

4. Celebrating Her Heritage

Cortez is thrilled to celebrate Mexican Independence Day with UFC Noche. “I don't like being emotional when I go in there, but I definitely am going to take it in when I walk out,” she told UFC.com. “I'm going to take it in. I'm going to take in all the energy, all the vibes. I'm going to feel the crowd’s energy, because Mexicans, they go hard for their fans.”

5. Big Dreams

Cortez is determined to take her fighting to the next level. “I do believe I have what it takes,” she told UFC.com. “Once they ingrained that in my brain, and I start seeing it, and I feel great, that's what happened. After having my injuries and being laid off for so long and having that itch to come back, it was like, ‘OK, I'm gonna come back, and what? Just accept a fight? No, I’m going to come back, and I’m going to make a statement.’”

Professional wrestler Valerie Loureda encouraged fans to watch both UFC and WWE NXT Great American Bash 2023 via a social media update. Loureda, 25, shared a video of herself looking fit and beautiful in an aquamarine bikini with matching coverup, telling fans who her picks are for the fights. “I’ve been working hard to bring a different touch to WWE that they’re never seen before,” she explained in the video. How does she stay so fit? Read on to see 5 ways Loureda stays in shape and the photos that prove they work.

1. Proud of Her Roots

Loureda is proud and confident about her fighting skills. “I’m an amazing wrestler,” she says. “Cuban wrestling is very different, and I was lucky enough to be taught wrestling by Yoel Romero and Alexis Villa and Gustavito (Balart), a lot of Olympic wrestlers, so they really taught me that Cuban wrestling, and I’m gonna take it into the cage. I just haven’t been given a chance to show it because I’m playing my game, but the moment I get the opportunity to show it, people are gonna be shocked by my wrestling skills.”

2. Taekwondo Background

Loureda grew up doing taekwondo, which set the tone for her future career as a fighter. “I never in my life thought for one second this is eventually what I would do,” she says. “I always had the vision of the Olympic dream [in taekwondo] in my mind, but at some point… that changed, and I saw MMA on TV. I saw the way it was blowing up, and people were falling in love with it. I said, ‘Wow, I can do that. I could fight like that. I could beat those girls, and I could change the world one day with that platform and all their viewers.’ So I was very excited about MMA, and that’s when it was born for me.”

3. Wrestling Training

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Loureda says switching from MMA to wrestling was no joke. “It’s extremely tough. For me, it’s actually harder than MMA,” she says. “My first bump, I just knew I could do it. I had this feeling in my gut and my first bump, hitting the ropes, I just fell in love with it and I knew I could do it. It’s tough, it’s a hard transition, it’s different than what I’m used to, but if you can rewire your brain and change your mentality and realize what this is and how to be the best at it, you can be successful. I was with coach (Norman) Smiley the whole time and he was amazing and taught me so much. He stayed in an open ring after for like two hours and we worked and he taught me stuff and taught me different things that would work with my style.”

4. Building Muscle

Loureda is careful to build muscle rather than lose weight as a result of MMA/wrestling training. “I might not be sparring as much, but I’m doing physical training (and) conditioning,” she says. “I lost a lot of weight after ‘Exatlon,’ and in these times, I’ve used time to concentrate on what I want to do with my life. While many are eating and gaining weight at home, I’ve been working to be on weight and be ready for this fight. So I haven’t had many partners for this training camp, but I’m very confident in my level and the years of training in martial arts.”

5. Beautiful and Strong

Loureda has neither time nor patience for those who criticize female athletes for bikini pictures. “If women do it, it’s being seen as doing it for social media and doing it to be an object for men and marketing. And that’s not the case,” she says. “It’s not for any man, it’s for us as women showing we can be badass and beautiful and strong, and we could still be animals in the cage and know how to defend ourselves.”

Erin Blanchfield is getting ready for UFC Edmonton – in her two-piece workout gear. In a new social media post the flyweight shows off her amazing body in an exercise set while sharing her excitement for her upcoming fight, one week away. Her followers went wild over the post. “You look like you are ready for your next challenge. Time to rise and shine,” one of them commented. “Cold-Blooded. 💪🏼😏🥋,” added another, while many others commented with fire emojis. How does she approach diet, fitness, and self-care? Here is everything you need to know about her lifestyle habits.

1. A Background in Martial Arts

When Erin was just 7, she started training in jiujitsu and competing in kickboxing and grappling tournaments. “I got into martial arts when I was 7 years old,” she told The Montclarian. “My brother was training and I went in to watch him and was offered a free class. I fell in love with the training and got into competing soon after.”

2. MMA Fighters Were Her Role Models

“There were always MMA fighters at the gyms I trained at growing up,” Blanchfield continued. “I always looked up to them. Once the UFC [Ultimate Fighting Championship] opened up women’s divisions, I knew fighting MMA was what I wanted to do.” Now she trains six days a week, using her same trainers for many years. “I’ve been training with my striking coach Augie Matias since I was 15 and my jiujitsu coach Frankie Roberts since I was 16,” she said. “They both have cornered me in all my professional fights and I couldn’t thank them enough.” She owes a lot of her success to them. “They both have helped me become the fighter I currently am and are always pushing me to become the best athlete I could be.”

3. Coffee

Erin is a coffee drinker. “Cappuccino pls,” she captioned a recent Instagram photo.

4. Cycling

As part of her training, Erin cycles. Here she is in Las Vegas cycling to improve her cardiovascular fitness.

5. Focus on Improvement

Erin focuses on progress, not perfection. “I feel like, every fight, you can see my improvements, and I feel like I’m always trying to improve after each one too,” she told New York Post. “I think these past few fights, I’ve had to strike more because it’s been hard to get the takedown, so you’ve just been able to see my striking more, even if it was kind of already at that level.”