What started as a way to get in shape has led Angela Hill to an historic opportunity in the sport of mixed martial arts.
The Prospect Lefferts Gardens resident is already the first African-American female fighter in the Ultimate Fighting Championship after earning a spot on the current season of “The Ultimate Fighter.”
By doing so, the organization’s only Brooklyn resident has a chance to beat out 15 other women in a tournament to determine its first-ever champion in the newly formed 115-pound strawweight division. The show, which features an all-female cast for the first time, premiered on Sept. 10 on Fox Sports 1 and airs every Wednesday at 10 pm.
“I wasn’t sure how MMA was going to work out for me, but I went for it,” Hill said. “So for all this coming to a head so quickly is really exciting for me.”
The 29-year-old only started training five years ago at Evolution Muay Thai in Manhattan when she was working 12-hour days as an animator and bartender. She and her husband and fellow fighter Adam Pryde took up muay thai after being told by a friend it is a total body work out like tae bo, but you actually learn how to fight.
“I was getting really antsy just from sitting at a computer,” Hill said. “You want to move around. That and I was getting a little fat.”
She’s had a meteoric rise since then. It was just a year ago that she had her first amateur muay thai fight, and she went on to post a 14–0 record. She moved from Brooklyn to North Carolina for five months to train at Blackeye MMA, which agreed to sponsor her if she tried out for the show. Hill’s first professional mixed martial arts fight was two days before trying out for “The Ultimate Fighter” in Las Vegas. She was having trouble finding an opponent because of her strong reputation as a muay thai fighter.
“Every time I fought I didn’t know if I could make a career out of it,” she said. “I just wanted to test myself. There was a point you should probably go pro because you can’t keep beating up these amateur girls.”
There were just eight spots on the 16-women cast remaining after eight contestants where brought over from the female-only Invicta organization. Hill quickly impressed at the tryout.
“I think we blew them away with the striking and I was able to manhandle the girl that I did train with,” she said.
Now she gets a chance to go against the world’s best fighters in her weight class. Hill had to stop herself from being a fangirl at times, having watched several of the more established competitors fight as she was beginning her career.
The lack of mixed martial arts experience has left Hill an underdog in the tournament. She was seeded 16th and will have to fight No. 1 seed and former Invicta champion Carla Esparza in the preliminary rounds. Hill expected that and was quick to point out that coach Gilbert Melendez continually said she was better than her seed in the premiere episode.
“All my career I have been catching up to people,” Hill said. “I feel like I have been able to close the gap with all the people in the past. I’m just going to keep striving to do that.”
It is that courage and confidence she wants people to take notice of during the season. Hill has already become an inspiration to African-American women, and has received messages and e-mails expressing their appreciation for how much she has already achieved.
“I leave it all out there,” Hill said. “I speak with confidence. You see why I am confident. I want people to know it is not a bad thing. Just look at that and say, ‘hey if she can be confident, I can be confident too.’ ”
