MMA pioneer Debi Purcell on Sexton, road to mainstream TV | MMAFighting.com

Interviews - MMA pioneer Debi Purcell on Sexton, road to mainstream TV | MMAFighting.com:

"In late 2007, Muscle and Fitness HERS wrote an article about female fitness role models entitled, “Women Strength”. The article opened by introducing readers to four women that were the class of their sports.

'Skateboarding has Tony Hawk. Women's soccer has Mia Hamm. And if female mixed martial arts (MMA) ever goes mainstream, it will have Debi Purcell,' the magazine said.

Unfortunately, when female MMA first did go mainstream the woman most credited for helping to start and keep the sport alive wasn’t getting the fights on television. Purcell, whose website FighterGirls.com helped keep the sport vibrant in the dark years was notably absent."

Women MMA Fighters - Debi Purcell

Nickname Whiplash
Height 5ft 7in (170cm)
Weight 135lb (61kg)
Fighting out of Ruas Vale Tudo
Town of birth Laguna Niguel, California
Fighting style Vale Tudo

Debi Purcell is an American mixed martial artist.

Purcell has been involved in fitness and martial arts for over twenty years, with competitive experience in vale tudo, submission grappling, boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, wrestling, taekwondo and gymnastics. Her introduction to MMA came in 1993 during the inaugural Ultimate Fighting Championship, when she was training alongside some of the first competitors in Huntington Beach. Having taken kickboxing, boxing and JKD, she moved on to Brazilian jiu jitsu and finally vale tudo under the famous Marco Ruas, when she says "everything started to make sense".

She is actively involved in supporting women's MMA, having set up Fightergirls.net and the WMAA (Women's Martial Arts Association), along with competing herself. Her eventual goal is to develop quality competitions on a regular basis for female MMA fighters, as she discusses in a 2004 interview with TheFightGame.tv.

Her last fight was a loss by unanimous decision against Hitomi Akano at Smack Girl, on 15 February, 2006.

First woman to ever compete and win in King of the Cage
Ultimate Wrestling World Title Belt Holder
Hook-N-Shoot Revolution Winner, 2002
Headliner on the first ever all women NHB card in US history
Ultimate Wrestling Minnesota Winner
Black Belt in Ruas Vale Tudo
Black Belt in Taekwondo

http://www.debipurcell.com/