Once upon a time, there were these two ostriches that would bicker back and forth about their goals and aspirations.
The older of the two ostriches kept telling the younger one that someday he was going to become the first ostrich to ever take flight.
He kept babbling on and on about how he was going to fly all the way to Africa and make love to a toucan.
After months of hearing the old ostrich talk about his inspirational yet perverted goal, the younger one returned home one day with a female toucan. The old ostrich asked him what was going on, and the younger one said, “you spent months talking about it, and I actually did it.”
Moral of the story; there are those who talk about accomplishing their goals, and then, there are those who go out there and take what they want.
California bombshell Erica Goitia is an ostrich—if ostriches were insanely beautiful and had mesmerizing brown eyes and trillion dollar bodies. Actually she’s nothing like an ostrich, but she is the prime example of a person who takes what they want in life.
Goitia is the owner and founder of Uppercut Models, a fast-rising modeling agency that was created based off Goitia’s love for the sport of mixed martial arts. Here is her story.
“I used to work in advertising for a company called Petrol, and they do a lot of really cool stuff in the video game industry, and they also do a lot of stuff with the UFC. I was in charge of casting a lot of the models for the ad campaigns that they would do,” Goitia told Mitch Ciccarelli on MMA Mass Debation Radio.
“So in casting, I would look through a lot of models and contact the modeling agencies for people that we needed, and I wasn’t too happy with the quality of models that they were providing us.”
“I ended up bringing in people that I knew personally or friends of friends, and they ended up being a lot better. My bosses over at Petrol were like “you should start your own modeling agency, that way this could be official and we can work together on this” and I did it. About four months ago, I just decided to run with this, and things are going great.”
Things are going great indeed.
According to the Uppercut Models website, the agency currently features a roster of 32 gorgeous female models in the Los Angeles, California area.
One of the most notable models on Goitia’s roster is Amber Nichole Miller, a former UFC Octagon girl and Xyience model.
Also part of the Uppercut Models team is blonde bombshell Pamela Jean Noble, spicy brunette and aspiring MMA Journalist Iris Garcia, long legged beauty Taiya King and much more.
The agency also has a stacked roster of male model cover stars such as Victor Andujo and James Hall.
Andujo was recently featured on the cover of the UFC Personal Trainer video game for the X-Box Kinect, and Hall rocked a bad ass character in promotional ads for THQ’s Saints Row: The Third which is set for release on November 15, 2011 for the X-Box 360 and PS3.
Clearly, Goitia has excellent taste in models.
Her company has provided top talent for global marketing campaigns and advertising initiatives in print, TV and online channels. The previously mentioned James Hall was one of three Uppercut Models to grace the cover of the April 2011 issue of Game Informer magazine, the fifth largest magazine in the country.
Goitia only hires the best which is also how she came up with the name for her organization.
“Once I thought of it, I thought it was just the perfect name, and there’s so many ways to look at the name and why it would be appropriate,” Goitia said.
“An uppercut is in relation to the knockout punch, and also, if you break it down into two words, upper cut, it’s the upper portion or the top which is the best of the best. You get the idea that we have the best models.”
So what does all of this have to do with MMA? That’s the question that some of you are probably asking as you read this. Well, unlike many other sports where it’s primarily about the action itself, MMA is a lifestyle, and beyond that, it is a symbol.
To a casual observer, that statement will likely seem silly, but for those of us who religiously follow the sport, we understand that it’s more than just the fight.
We watched this sport grow from a no holds barred spectacle that was banned in 49 states into the fastest growing sport in the entire world that is now going to be prominently featured on the FOX network.
The symbol that MMA stands for is this: no matter what people say about you, you have it within yourself to be as successful as you want to be.
Erica Goitia embodies that principal because throughout her young career she has dealt with judgmental individuals that believed she was nothing more than a pretty face, and she proves them all wrong every single day.
It takes a very intelligent, hard-working person to do the things Goitia is doing with Uppercut Models. The future is certainly bright, and it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to see Goitia venture into the world of MMA sponsorship.
Surely, she wouldn’t mind seeing the Uppercut Models logo imprinted on the trunks of one of her favorite MMA fighters.
“I don’t really like to pick favorites but I think there are a lot of fighters that are really good at specific things. Everyone is probably going to give me crap for this but I think Georges St. Pierre is an awesome fighter all around. People complain that he is boring or whatever, but he gets the job done and is always on point.”
St. Pierre is definitely on point which, coincidentally, is the way he has won his last few fights… on points.
Joking aside though, St. Pierre is a phenomenal athlete and unquestionably one of the best fighters in the entire world.
However, St. Pierre wasn’t born a champion. He worked his tail to the bone and beat everyone that was put in front of him until one day he earned the right to be called great.
Such is the case with Goitia and Uppercut Models. You might not know much about her or the company right now, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Nevertheless, just like the young ostrich mentioned at the start of the article, Goitia is doing things that other people are only talking about doing.
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