These days, you don’t see women like Georgia Graham, the official ring girl for the British Association of Mixed Martial Arts, but spending some time to talk to her can definitely make a man wish that there were more women like this chilled-out young lady.
How goes that?
She always responds to her fans on Twitter, she’s not afraid to admit that she loves to talk to people in general, whether they should be fighters or fans (but be nice to her, boys!), she’ll take a chill night with some pizza and some X-Box Kinect over a night at the club any day of the week, and she loves tattoos as well as cars.
As a matter of fact, she does have a pretty sweet tattoo, and she’s had a very extensive modeling career before becoming a BAMMA ring girl.
All of this, and yet she lives what some would consider a “quiet” lifestyle.
Above all else, she’s a girl with a pretty awesome job involving an atmosphere like none other, which she gets to do tonight live at BAMMA 9: Watson vs. Marshman, and for those of you stuck going off of Twitter reactions for the event, if your provider allows for a subscription to HDNet, you get to experience the atmosphere of tonight’s event on your television sets on Friday, April 6 when the fight card hits HDNet.
So how did it all start for Georgia?
“BAMMA was my first-ever job as a ring girl,” Graham told Bleacher Report MMA, “I was just a promotion girl working at various motor sports and red-carpet events, and it was a red-carpet event doing a promotion that I was noticed by BAMMA, and that’s how I got into it.”
It didn’t take the world long to catch on to Graham, and from BAMMA 5 on until now, the world of MMA knew this vivacious young lady, who has often been brought up in the same sentence as Arianny Celeste and Brittney Palmer in the past.
By her own admission, the ring girl job was brand-new to her when she first started out, but she’s a girl that does what she loves and loves what she does, and one of the best parts of the job is the atmosphere of the crowds.
“It’s crazy,” Graham said, “it’s the best thing ever. It’s really hard to describe…especially when a fight is really going, like when it was Tom Watson vs. Murilo “Ninja” Rua, the atmosphere was…watching it on TV, you just can’t get an idea of how mad it actually is in there.”
“I feel so happy to be there and to be a part of it.”
Graham has been one of the names synonymous with BAMMA for a long time now, and when she got a glimpse of the card, she was really pleased with it, which is not an unfamiliar feeling for the official BAMMA ring girl.
“When I read the card, I was really pleased with it,” Graham said, “and I was really excited when I read some of the names that were popping up.”
From top to bottom, the card looked like it would be a great show for fans of the promotion and a real treat for MMA fans looking for fresh talent.
But of course, like many in the MMA world, the one that stood out was the main event of the night with BAMMA World Middleweight champion Tom Watson facing British Middleweight Champion and undefeated prospect Jack Marshman.
Graham herself was asked about the fight when it first came out, and like those familiar with what “Kong” and Watson are capable of doing inside the cage, she couldn’t wait for the fight to finally go down.
“In my honest opinion, I just don’t know what to say,” Graham said, “because Tom is an extremely talented fighter—I mean, he’s proven himself—he’s brilliant and very skilled, but Marshman just doesn’t give up. He just keeps going ’til the end, and I think it’ll be a very interesting fight.”
“I can’t say an opinion on who I think will win or what’ll happen, but I think it’ll be the fight of the night for sure.”
One thing Georgia can say for sure is that when she takes a job, she always looks to educate herself and understand what the job encompasses, and a look at her official YouTube channel will show you that she knows a thing or two about the hard work that goes into training for the sport of MMA.
“It’s fun,” Graham said, “but it’s a good sport to do, and I think it’d be good if more people saw it and could see it and the fighters as a sport.”
With organizations such as BAMMA and Ultimate Challenge MMA, one might think that MMA is off and running, but while British MMA is going strong right now, it is still coming further along, just as the sport is coming further along.
“When I started working in MMA, obviously in America, it’s huge, but in the UK, it’s still getting out there, and people are like ‘Oh, that just fighting?’ and I’m like, ‘Well, not really. It’s Mixed Martial Arts…it’s not just brawling.'”
Graham has seen the sport of MMA grow, she’s watched BAMMA grow throughout her time in the sport, and she’ll watch both BAMMA and MMA continue to grow until there is no more MMA left to watch for sure as she remains positive about the future of this sport.
“I think it’ll be big,” Graham said, “I think, from watching BAMMA grow, I reckon it’s going to be huge, and even this year with BAMMA 9, I think there’ll be attending [events]…it’s going to keep on going, and I just can’t wait to see what happens.”
“It’d be really great to see that happen, but you just never know. You’ve got to work hard and put in the effort and the promotion.”
The sport will grow, as will BAMMA after tonight’s event takes place, and when BAMMA grows to become quite possibly the largest and most must-see organization in the UK, we’re all going to enjoy what happens next for that organization.
One thing’s for sure, boys and girls, you can bet that Georgia Graham will watching it all from start to finish, and when you finally get to see what happens next, you’ll wish you were there.
BAMMA 9 takes place on Saturday, March 24, in the UK at Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena. BAMMA is presented by Go Daddy in association with Lonsdale and PKR
BAMMA 9 televises on Extreme Sports Channel (UK & Europe), HDNet (U.S.) The Fight Network (Canada), TDN (Latin America), Setanta (Africa) and Red Media (Russia). For all viewing information visit www.bamma.com
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