In her first fight for the year, professional mixed martial arts fighter Sarah McCann lost out to American fighter Chelsey Hibsch.
Despite the loss the Ngāti Porou descendant, who has a 2-1-0 MMA record, says she’s taking a lot of learning from the experience and feels proud for the role she’s playing in being an inspiration to women.
McCann is permanently based in Saitama, Japan having become one of the first female fighters to be signed by Shooto – a professional Japanese MMA company. She is one of four ladies to fight on their 30 th anniversary tour.
"Shooto is one of the oldest MMA organisations in the world," McCann told Te Karare.
"It's a really well established organisation.
"So to be a wahine fighting on that card or fighting for them is really cool."
Despite losing to jiu-jitsu based fighter Hibsch, McCann says she the humbling defeat will help her going forward.
"I knew that I worked my ground but I still came up short because I didn't execute my plan and that's kind of a hard pill to swallow - but that's life, right?"
Known for her striking, McCann, says its was frustrating especially for her fight team at Purebred Yamato Damashii.
"I didn't let my hands go. I hardly threw any punches and I wanted to grab her and knee and elbow and do those awesome things I like to do and I didn't do any of that so that was very frustrating."
One person in McCann's corner her trainer and partner Enson Inoue, a former Shooto heavyweight champion.
I feel really fortunate because he's there to help in training, physicaly, mentally, everything.
"It's so awesome to have him there supporting and he understands how I feel throughout the whole parts of the journey, through the ups and the downs and it's really nice having him and his experience alongside me."
McCann’s next fight will be in May.
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