Laura Sanko may work for the biggest mixed martial arts organization in the world, but when she’s away from all the blood and brutality of the Octagon, the beloved MMA analyst prefers the quiet refuge of her sprawling ranch.
In a recent video on her YouTube channel, Sanko opened the gates and invited fight fans to see a behind-the-scenes look at what Sanko does when she’s not offering her expertise on the fight game.
“We’ve owned this land since 2013 to build our dream house,” Sanko said. “The idea has been, you know, in our minds for quite a while, and a year ago, we finally got construction underway. One of my favorite spots in the whole house is this Four Seasons room, which was kind of how the whole idea of the house started. We wanted to have as much of the outside connected to the inside. I love being able to look out and see the cattle, the creek, and we have bald eagles that live out here. We have a black coyote that lives out here.
“Once we came up here one day and just saw what it looked like, we were like, ‘This is the spot.’ The whole ranching piece of it really comes from my husband. He grew up in Western Kansas, and when I met him, he had 1,500 head of cattle. We dated for like 6 years, and I would go down to the bigger ranch with him. We really enjoyed that, so we knew we wanted to have that piece of ranch life when we had a family.”
“This is my Sanctuary. There’s a lot of peace that our ranch brings.”
Laura Sanko rises through the ranks to make UFC history
After hanging up her MMA gloves following a brief stint under the Invicta FC banner, Sanko made the move to broadcasting where she eventually scored a gig as a roving reporter for the UFC.
In 2021, Sanko became the first female color commentator since Kathy Long at UFC 1 more than three decades ago. After cutting her teeth on Dana White’s Contender Series, she made history once again, earning a spot at the broadcast table for UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs. Spivak on February 3, 2023.
She made her UFC pay-per-view debut later that same year at UFC 293.
