Summer Onley never was interested in mixed martial arts. Ten years ago, she had never even heard of it.
When it did introduce itself into her life, she was shocked when her boyfriend (now fiancee) first flipped the channel and she saw women, battering and bloodying one another, as the crowd roared. For Onley, it was love at first fight.
“I loved it straight away,” Onley recently told MMA Junkie. “I thought it was super entertaining. I think one of the cards that I watched had Joanna Jedrzejczyk on it, and I was like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe women are doing it.” So, yeah, I was really, really into it.”
“… I’m sure it was a really violent fight. I mean, Joanna Jędrzejczyk used to be really violent anyway. So I watched it and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is crazy, almost barbaric.’ That’s how I saw it. ‘Jesus Christ, what these people are doing?’ But I did love it.”
It’s one thing to be a fan. It’s a whole other thing to be a practitioner. It’s another thing to go full-on getting-punched-in-the-face-daily-level of dedication. Jiu-jitsu was first as a way to get in shape, and to switch things up from what she felt was a mundane career choice in graphic design.
“One day I just thought, ‘This absolutely sucks,’” Onley laughed. Working a nine-to-five job Monday to Friday, living for the weekends — this is not how I want to live. It just hit me that I could do something else.”
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