As good as Germaine de Randamie is, she’s even more humble. So when you ask her about Cesar Gracie calling her “the female Anderson Silva,” or Strikeforce welterweight champion Marloes Coenen declaring the Netherlands native to have the best standup in women’s MMA today, the answer is pretty much what you expect.
“It’s not about being humble, it’s the way you see yourself,” she said. “I don’t see myself as the best striker; I see myself as a fighter that still needs to learn a lot. And even though it’s a big honor to have big names say things like that about you, I want to stay focused, keep both my feet on the ground, and put up a great performance for the fans. That’s the only thing on my mind.”
She certainly doesn’t disappoint, with 46 wins in 46 Muay Thai fights (with 30 wins by knockout), and two victories thus far in a three fight MMA career that began in 2008. And if she won’t say it, there are plenty that will have no problem letting the world know that she has the potential to one day be, yes, the female Anderson Silva.
That’s in the future though. For today, the 27-year old “Iron Lady” is focusing on picking up the ground skills necessary to compete with her Strikeforce peers. She’s already got the standup down pat as she enters Friday night’s Challengers bout with Julia Budd, but the rest, that’s still a work in progress. And she’s fine with that. In fact, she has removed ego from the equation completely as she immerses herself in the ground game. You wouldn’t expect such a selfless attitude from someone who was so dominant in another branch of combat sports, but it’s this new challenge that motivates her.
“I didn’t have much motivation anymore (in Muay Thai),” she admits. “I love fighting so much, but every time they would line up a fight and then say ‘oh, the fight is canceled because the girl didn’t want to fight you, she wasn’t ready yet.’ So I always said that there was one thing I always wanted to do, and that’s fighting in the cage. With the different rules, I think it’s the ultimate fighting for women, to stand in the cage and punch each other in the face and submit each other, and that was always something that I wanted to do.”
So the former nurse from Utrecht did it, turning pro with virtually no ground experience in December of 2008 against Vanessa Porto. Porto submitted her 3:36 into the bout with an armbar. De Randamie easily could have walked away at that moment, but instead, she got more intrigued by the sport of mixed martial arts.
“I had my fight with Vanessa Porto and I lost the fight with an armbar, and I was like ‘wow, I’ve got to make this up,’” said de Randamie. “And I started training wrestling and jiu-jitsu again and I loved it so much. Muay Thai is great, and it’s in my blood – I love it – but right now it feels like I’m a baby again that’s learning how to walk, and that’s how jiu-jitsu and wrestling is. I love to challenge myself and keep learning, and this is a big challenge for me because I’m heading into an MMA world where the females have very good skills on the ground and I only have my standup skills, so I’m learning all this new stuff, and I’m so happy and having a lot of fun learning every day.”
Given her past success in Muay Thai, it’s clear that anything she sets her mind to, she can accomplish. So what will she do after she conquers MMA? Move on to soccer?
She laughs.
“I need the challenge, but I already did soccer. I was on the national team of the Netherlands.”
The former junior national soccer player’s true home was in the world of combat sports though, and now, years after she first entered a gym at 15 simply to lose some weight, she’s on the verge of big things in MMA. And as a world-class athlete with the knockout power to turn anyone’s head, she also finds herself in a position many of her peers do as well – to not only win fights and excite the fans, but to convert skeptics to the sport of female MMA and be a role model of sorts to those on the fence about taking the plunge into the fight game.
“Of course, it’s a goal, and it’s not only my goal, but a goal for a lot of women that are doing MMA,” she said. “They want to become that popular fighter that the fans are enthusiastic about seeing. But at this point, I really don’t know because I still need to learn a lot. Of course I hope one day that I will be one of the role models, but at this point, I don’t know. Every day I go into the gym and train hard, work hard and learn a lot. And I hope I can reach people and show that women’s MMA fighters are willing to put everything on the line to expand it all.”
With fighters like Cris Cyborg, Coenen, Gina Carano, Amanda Nunes, and Budd, just to name a couple, the sport has gotten many positive notices here in the United States. Back in her native Europe though, there’s still work to be done.
“You don’t have many women doing MMA in Holland, and in Europe overall there’s not much either,” she said. “If you look at all the jiu-jitsu tournaments in and around Holland, there are not many competitors in the women’s divisions. So it’s not very popular yet. Even for the men, it’s popular in England because of Michael Bisping and Dan Hardy and some other great MMA fighters who are coming up, and we, of course, in Holland have Alistair (Overeem) and some other great MMA fighters, but when there’s a show with an MMA fight, some people still go to the bar or get a bite to eat. People don’t respect it here in Holland that much. They don’t understand the ground game and they’re not willing to put in a lot of effort to get to understand it yet. But I think with Alistair, Gegard Mousasi, and Melvin Manhoef, those guys are very popular, and maybe it’s coming up.”
Not surprisingly, de Randamie, for all her accolades in Muay Thai, which included 10 titles in three different weight classes, was never able to be a full-time fighter when competing in the art of eight limbs.
“When I was doing Muay Thai, I had a full-time job as a nurse,” she said. “In Holland, you don’t have sponsors or anything, and it was hard, but it was okay. You want to be focused on the fight, but if you go to work, it’s work, no matter what, and you have to be focused. After a long day of work, like eight or nine hours, I would head to the gym, and giving yourself a hundred percent is sometimes very hard. But if you have a dream, you’ve got to live your dream and you have to be willing to give up everything.”
She has, and now she’s coming at the MMA world with all guns blazing. The next fighter in her path is talented striker Budd, who is coming off a 14 second knockout loss to Amanda Nunes in January. De Randamie is not counting on a repeat.
“The Nunes fight was a beautiful knockout, but I’m expecting a different Julia Budd,” she said. “That was the past and now we’re on to this fight, and no matter what happens, this is gonna be Julia Budd vs. Germaine, and I leave the fight with Amanda Nunes behind and I expect her to be at her best and to come back strong. And I’m gonna be strong too, so it’s gonna be a nice fight.”
But what about that pressure to be the “female Anderson Silva?”
“I do not want to take that pressure with me into the cage,” she said. “The only mindset I have is to put out a good performance and a nice fight. Train hard, fight easy, put up your best performance and the best fighter will win. Maybe the pressure is there, but I don’t want to take it with me.”
She just wants to fight. And finish.
“I like to finish the fight,” she said. “(UFC President) Dana White always says ‘don’t leave it up to the judges,’ and I really do not like to do that. That’s my goal when I enter the cage and that’s what I’m training for – to finish the fight as fast and as beautiful as I can. But if someone gets knocked out, the only wish I have is to stand up as fast as you can and be healthy. I don’t want anybody to get hurt. That’s not the goal.”
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