Calderwood fighting for love, not money
Joanne Calderwood: “If I wasn’t fighting professionally, I would be doing it as a hobby because I love it so much. I’m not doing it for the money or for anything else.”
UFC strawweight Joanne ‘Jojo’ Calderwood, 28, was recently profiled by the UK’s massively popular Mail Online.
“II don’t tell people straight away,” she began. “I usually say I work in the gym and then I’ll see how the conversations goes. Then I might go on to tell them I’m a professional fighter. People are always surprised.
“People say ‘your face is too pretty to be getting hit.’ I just laugh. I train hard every day so that I don’t get hit in the face!”
“Luckily, I’ve been in an environment where I’ve never been treated badly. My fans like me because I’m a good fighter, not because I’m a woman.
“The men in the gym just see me as another fighter, not as a girl. As long as you keep your head down and work hard, no one is ever going to judge you or treat you differently because you’re a woman.
“My mum always does my hair before my fights if I’m fighting locally. She always winds me up and says that I should be doing a beauty pageant, not a fight. But she’s been there since day one. She was the one who took me to my first class.
“She knows how much I love it and how dedicated I am, and she just wants me to be happy. My brother and sister love it too. They will all watch it – even my sister who is a school teacher and doesn’t have a violent bone in her body. They support me and they know I love what I’m doing.”
“Even if I wasn’t fighting professionally, I would be doing it as a hobby because I love it so much.
“I’m not doing it for the money or for anything else; I’m doing it because I love it. Everything else is just a bonus. I’m so grateful that I’ve managed to make a living out of the sport I love. It just shows you that, if you work hard and you put your mind to it, you can achieve what you want in life.”
“It would be good to see more women taking up MMA. Everyone I meet, I try to get them to try it. MMA is an outlet for things. It’s like going to the gym but it’s so much better because you’re not just going there, running on the treadmill and leaving, but you’re training your body in different ways.”
“If I’ve heard bad news or I’ve had a bad day, I’ll go to the gym and two hours later I’ll leave and feel so much better about things. I get lost in the moment. MMA lets you look at things in a different, more positive way.”
“My goal for now is to be the UFC strawweight champion and all the stuff that comes along with that is just a bonus. During that journey I would like to think I could touch people. I’d like to be a role model for young girls and boys.”
“For people who have never seen a UFC fight, you can’t even describe the atmosphere.”
