Michelle Waterson-Gomez on retirement – “The fight game is tough. It’s unforgiving.”
Michelle Waterson-Gomez, known to fight fans as “Karate Hottie” or her maiden name, Michelle Waterson, retired at the conclusion of UFC 303 and 17 years of fighting.
Reflecting back on her career the 38-year-old competitor, wife, and mother, spoke with MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani about her decision to hang up the gloves.
“I’ve been fighting for over 17 years,” Waterson-Gomez said. “My husband sacrificed a lot in order for me to fight. He sacrificed his own fighting career. As long as my daughter’s been born, she’s been a gym kid. You take her to the gym, she was in the car seat, she’s had to sacrifice birthdays, events, change around things on her end so mommy can train, so mommy can fight. She’s getting older, and I want to be in her corner. I want to be in my husband’s corner. There are a lot of things that he’s doing right now that I want to be a part of.
“I’m not getting any younger. I think that you just kind of have to recognize things for what they are, and as a fighter and a competitor, if I could, I would stay in chasing the wins, chasing that incredible high that you get when you win, chasing the gold. But I think I just had to recognize where I was at in my MMA career, and the amount of time and sacrifice I was putting into that could be put into a different direction, where I can get a win in different areas of life.”
Waterson-Gomez is a former Invicta FC Atomweight Champion. Between 2013 and 2014, she was ranked the No. 1 women’s atomweight fighter in the world, but she never did earn a UFC title.
“It fills my heart, it really does,” Waterson-Gomez said. “It’s crazy. If you were to ask me when I was a little girl, what did you think you were going to be when you grow up, I would have never in a million years imagined that I would be a professional fighter for the UFC, but that’s where the road took me and I am so eternally grateful for that. It’s really shaped me into the person I am today.
“The fight game is tough. It’s unforgiving. You’re met with challenges every step of the way and it can be a lonely road sometimes. You have to be very selfish in order to climb the ladder, but that’s kind of how life is and I think that’s why I fell in love with fighting is because it’s just a mirror representation of what life is. It’s tough. You’re going to be met with adversity. It’s supposed to be hard. You’re supposed to have struggles and you’re supposed to meet those struggles with excitement. You’re supposed to overcome those challenges and become a better person from it.”
