I have a fight! my training, sponsors, etc
I’m so excited I have a fight coming up! I’m still under contract with Invicta but they allowed me to take this fight with Fusion Fight League. It wasn’t easy finding an opponent, but finally Priscila De Souza was finalized.
It’s in Montana and won’t be televised, so you gotta go buy tickets! Serena was also given a fight on the amateur section! That’s pretty cool a card can have both, and how often do a a pro-friend and ammy friend get to fight on the same day?
Actually I wish we weren’t because I’m super emotionally involved in her fight and I get really nervous. But I guess it can’t be helped at this point. :/ I’m trying to be positive about it.
It’s gonna be fine. John’s gonna take care of us so I won’t be nervous. She’s been trying to get a fight for a while now, too. She has improved SO Much. I can’t wait to see her fight again!
I’m going with Coach John, and I’m flying in Captain because each team gets only one cornerman paid for. Most promotions have that rule.
You might see me posting about sponsorship. I don’t know how aware the average fan is, but the sponsorship scene has changed so much over the years I’ve been fighting. Back in the day like 10 years ago when the UFC was shown once every month or every two months, the fighters got thousands of dollars for wearing brand name shorts like Sprawl, Tapout, Affliction, etc. Then the market got saturated with fighters and brands and the companies realized that they weren’t making enough money back from such advertisement to justify spending such big money. So they cut back. And got picky with which fighters. Many fighters didn’t make an effort to show off their sponsors before and after the fights. Sometimes, fighters’ money they made from sponsorship was greater than their fight purse! I’m taking like over $50,000! Then the Reebok deal happened and UFC fighters were no long allowed to wear sponsors and only got like $2,500. From $50,000 to $2,500. Crazy, huh?
So my manager stopped being able to find me any good sponsors, and I started seeing fellow fighters posting on Facebook, ‘Who wants to sponsor me? E-mail me!” I thought, well, why don’t I try it?
And I started getting sponsors! Fans who owned small companies would give me some cash to put their logo on my clothes. Fans who didn’t own a company would contribute to put their name on my shorts or banner to show support. It adds up. In my last four fights in Invicta, I can say that other than Dragon Do, Cryohelmet, and Herbal Papaya, every single one of my sponsors was a fan. Well actually, the owner of Herbal Papaya contacted me because she was a fan. I am fan sponsored!
Crazy…
But I think I’m good for unique companies like Herbal Papaya and Cryohelmet because I do have a large social media following and they have unique products that are specifically good for me and the people who follow me. Everybody already has shorts. But do you have a product that can boost your immunity and help digestion like Herbal Papaya, or sooth headaches and migraines like Cryohelmet?!?
Someone suggested starting a gofundme account, but honestly, I wouldn’t do that because I’m not broke and I don’t wanna seem like I’m begging for money. No one is forcing me to fight. I do it because I love it. So I wanna do things that people will enjoy, like making my autographs accessible to buy, or putting someone’s name on my banner which will be shown on TV. 🙂
(click to enlarge)
removeitrestoration.com is one of my biggest, most consistent sponsors!
They’re also sponsoring Serena, Captain, and Naldo, so we took a group picture wearing their patches.
And this is me at this very moment typing this blog, wearing one of my two Cryohelmets.
(btw if you use the code: ROXYFIGHTER on the Cryohelmet website you get 15% off for the next month)
Anyway. So if you wanna buy this autographed photo, you can paypal $25 to basilisk875@yahoo.com and include your address! Or if you are interested in more, email me. And because money isn’t everything, even emailing me a “good luck” will make me super happy. 😀
I realized today that I started out this week with a faulty mentality. Last week I overworked myself to the point where I got sick, so I told myself this week I would take it down a notch. Also, John is away cornering Jessy in South Korea, and I’m super unmotivated to do striking when he’s not around. Today, while trying to do kickboxing, I realized that I mentally gave myself an out, so I tried to rev myself back up. However, I think I was still a little burned out from last week because I didn’t even feel aggressive while doing jiu-jitsu, and that’s rare.
I had such a headache that got worse after warm-ups, that every time I was hit, contact or blocked, my head would pound. Then everytime I landed a strike, namely on the heavy bag, my head felt like it was going to explode. It freaked me out because I’ve gotten a concussion before, and even though I KNOW today was just a neck-tension headache, I felt horrible.
Training to become a champion on your worst days, right?
I really wanted to go home after jiujitsu but didn’t.
Despite hating striking in general when John isn’t here, I actually really liked Tom’s ideas he was communicating today. I was trying to hard to give myself a goal during training, and ended up giving myself poor ones: don’t let my kicks get caught, and work on feints. They were poor because I didn’t specify how many kicks or how many feints, like “make someone bite on my feint successfully five times.” This locked me into a 100% success ratio expectation, so when someone caught a kick, I felt like I had failed. As I was getting my Cryohelmet out of John’s freezer in his office to try and recover a bit between rounds 2 and 3, I felt like such a loser and failure. Then I asked myself, “Okay, so how many times did you actually do it?” I looked back and realized that I had succeeded quite a lot, but my brain conveniently forgot about those times. I did a lot of good stuff, but my emotions weren’t giving me credit for them.
In the middle of the 4th round, I was going with Tony. Suddenly I heard Captain’s voice erupt from my right, “Let’s GO Roxy!”
I literally felt power enter my body. It was crazy, and very interesting.
He’s training for his own fight so he hadn’t come in today for class, but came in to hit mitts with Naldo.
I am very affected by 1) my trainers’ presences 2) music
I’m also 100% certain I could have ignored my headache a bit more if Rob Zombie was playing rather than the dumb rap and slow instrumentals that have been on in John’s absence.
Oh yeah, I didn’t tell about Tom’s goals yet. So he had us do combos but notice our how opponent blocks, or reacts. Then try and feint them and throw something else. It seems so simple, but we don’t often focus on JUST noticing specific patterns of our training partners. So I gave up my two goals and for the last two rounds adopted those, and man! I had so much success! Then Tom had us do rounds of only power punches.
I’m really proud of myself, despite feeling mentally sluggish and having a headache, I still got great practice in.
I canceled my Portuguese lesson today and I’m so glad, I can just lay down. I actually went food shopping instead. x_x and mailed out some autographs. Wait, so that means I’m not actually resting? I’m SO BAD AT RESTING. I need someone to lock me in my apartment. x_x
My Brazilian Brother Naldo held mitts for me on Monday. I really only want John to hold mitts for me, but I’ve found that if I don’t hit mitts on Monday, it doesn’t rev up my brain for kickboxing and I’m super unmotivated to do it for the rest of the week. Plus I was curious about Naldo, because I saw him holding for another teammate. I enjoyed my session with him! I really need to have a friendship or connection with my mitt holder to help motivate me to do it. -_- That’s another reason I asked him.
Thanks!!
This past Sunday, I made plans with Thais (my Portuguese teacher and Captain’s wife) to go to this Brazilian restaurant Boca do Brasil, and Captain came along. It was really nice! Great food, and the garlic didn’t make me melt since I’m a vampire. (i.e. give me an upset stomach)
Captain got a short-notice fight in World Series of Fighting, so he’ll be fighting in NY this Saturday, March 18th! It’ll be shown on NBC Sports! Please watch and cheer for him! He’s on the undercard.
Also Jessy jess in South Korea vs Sarah Kaufman in Battlefront, but I don’t know how to watch that… She has also improved a ton over the recent months! I’m so excited for her to fight and win!! Go Jessy!
I’m in such great shape. I can’t wait to fight!
Jessica Bakan took this photo of me hitting mitts with John. It’s pretty cool! …