“Women can either build or destroy the society. In my opinion,” Perla Abi Rached, the owner of Eshtebak gym, told The Daily Star. “The woman is a main component of life.” These were strong words coming from a 19-year-old girl, but Abi Rached isn’t the average teenager.
Sitting in the office of her gym, flanked by a plethora of certificates and trophies, Abi Rached recounted how she won the Arab Thai Boxing Championship at the tender age of 15 – after she knocked out the titleholder 20 years her senior.
“It made problems for the head of the union because he’s not supposed to let someone under 19 fight, especially with the world champion!” she said with a chuckle.
After winning 14 titles, Abi Rached hung up her gloves to embark on a career as a Thai boxing trainer. She took over her father’s gym and now has a strong base of students whom she trains for mixed martial arts (MMA) competitions.
Abi Rached is at the forefront of a growing number of women in Lebanon getting involved in MMA as the sport’s popularity swells. Women join the sport for different reasons and are often faced with varying reactions to their newfound passion from their peers and family.
MMA was largely popularized through the Ultimate Fighting Championship, one of a number of MMA contests. UFC turned MMA into the fastest-growing sport in the United States, and business magazine Forbes estimated that it was worth $1.65 billion in 2014.
In 2011, UFC President Dana White said that women would “never” fight in his tournaments. This all changed with the ascent of Ronda Rousey. Her mix of good looks and vicious fighting style made her an ideal competitor who was – most importantly for White – extremely marketable.
Rousey signed with the UFC in 2012 and 11 female fighters followed shortly. Since then the women’s bantamweight division has become one of the UFC’s most popular.
In Lebanon women often sign up for MMA simply to lose weight or learn self-defense. Some, however, join MMA gyms to compete.
Abi Rached, with the encouragement of her father, began her Thai boxing training at the age of 8. She always had the intention of competing and she believes the sport does much more for a person than simply keep them fit.
“It trains the spirit and mind before the body,” she said. “It helps you in life, in the way you deal with people and with your problems.”
Joanna Salameh also had every intention of competing when she started training under one of Lebanon’s top MMA fighters, George Eid, at the Tristar gym.
The 23-year-old fell in love with the sport after seeing women – who she describes as real life “Wonder Women” – compete. As the only woman in her class, she admired the respect that she received from her fellow fighters.
“I was basically the outsider but they made me feel at home,” she recalled. “They went light on me [during sparring] at first but eventually they were not afraid of hurting me.”
Salameh has now been training for two years and has competed in two grappling tournaments. She’s currently gunning to represent Lebanon in a Las Vegas tournament later this year.
While Abi Rached and Salameh have both experienced success in the world of MMA, they are often met with mixed reactions when people find out that they are fighters.
Salameh said that people are often confused by the contradiction between her femininity and the violence of MMA.
Abi Rached does not see the two as contradictory, quite the opposite. She also owns a beauty clinic, which she sees as her main career, and thinks that the two complete each other. Women, she said, are better built to be fighters.
“A woman can take more than the man in her spirit, men may be able to handle more physically but women can handle more mentally.”
As far as she knows, Abi Rached is currently the only woman training in MMA in Lebanon. She said that some people are quite skeptical at first but then take her seriously after a few sessions in the gym.
Abi Rached oozes confidence, and she casually shrugs off people that have anything negative to say about her being a woman in a male-dominated sport.
“I think that anyone who tries to mock me for being a woman is just ignorant. For me, this is very normal,” she said.
When meeting a potential love interest, Salameh said that she often encounters three different reactions: a mixture of fear and discomfort, absolute awe, or total indifference. The second is her favorite.
“The second one is the one I enjoy most, “Oh you’re so cool, you’re like Superwoman!” That’s fun!” she said.
As for the future, Salameh is cautiously optimistic about MMA for women in Lebanon. She believes by following the model of somebody such as Ronda Rousey, female tournaments could be successful in the Arab world.
“I think women can have a future, even in the Arab world, even in a world where women are not perceived as able to be both feminine and beasts in the cage,” she said.
“If we take baby steps and we slowly build an audience who genuinely cares about female fighters, I think we can accomplish a lot.”
