Heroic title win at Reality Fighting 101 for Messer-Belenchia
Andrew Calandrelli: “She amazes me more and more every day and I couldn’t be more proud of her. Strongest human being I know.”
The longest-running MMA show in New England featured Marisa Messer-Belenchia vs. Grace Nowak for the women’s atomweight belt at Reality Fighting 101 on Friday night, at Mohegan Sun. The two punched each other in the face a record number of times, with Messer-Belenchia taking a unanimous decision, and both fighters winning the heart of the crowd.
However, if the crowd had known Messer-Belenchia’s full story, they might well have been brought to tears.
Just over a month ago, David Baviello, the love of her life, passed away. She told Reality Fighting matchmaker Joe Cuff that she wanted to go through with the fight anyway. She told him she needed to.
Cuff talked it over with her team and the fight was on. However, Cuff told ‘The Spider Monkey’, “If on weigh-in day or fight-day you decide you don’t want to fight, I totally understand, and it will be fine.”
Marisa never wavered in her desire to fight, but a virus had other intentions. She was hospitalized after weigh-ins after she vomited for six hours. This is fight day:
In one day Marisa Messer-Belenchia went from the hospital to the cage. And then she fought, ferociously. And then she won.
Her coach, the highly-respected founder of Ultimate MMA Andrew Calandrelli offered the highest praise.
“I wanted to pull her from the fight but she said, ‘No I’ll get through this,'” he explained. “I never met anyone with that kind of willpower. 99% of the men in the world would have pulled out. She amazes me more and more every day and I couldn’t be more proud of her. Strongest human being I know.”