“Boom!” It’s only one minute and forty seconds of the first round and suddenly Natalie Roy from Santa Fe lands a tremendous punch on her opponent, Nikki Lowe, and the fight is over.
This is “Redemption at the Rock,” a night of mixed martial arts (MMA) fights at the Camel Rock Lodge in Tesuque, a night with 10 fights and a cheering audience of about 1,000. Put on by Orthrus Promotions, its leaders, JR Rodriguez and Sal Mora and their staff, it was an exciting and well organized event for a sport that has a big future in New Mexico and across the country. It was their fifth such event in New Mexico, Texas and Iowa and another is coming up on June 14.
I was the 145 pound boxing champion of my university many decades ago but that was nothing compared to what these fighters go through in terms of training and toughness. Notwithstanding the concerns about injuries, I’m a strong believer in being able to defend yourself. What little I learned from my boxing experiences got me out of some nasty scrapes in college and the Army.
Until March 6, 2004, however, I had almost completely forgotten about boxing. That day my wife and I stopped in Las Vegas for breakfast en route to Denver and met Johnny Tapia who had just lost a fight the night before. His face was battered but he was as courteous and kind as anyone I’ve ever met and ended our conversation by saying, “Keep me in your heart.” In 2010, I went to see “The Battle for Redemption” which was his first fight since 2007. He was 43 at the time, had to lose 34 pounds to make weight but handily defeated Jorge “El Gallito” Reyes from El Paso. He pummeled El Gallito in the ring but hugged him afterwards and at their press conference, a show of affection that I always saw in the other times we met. I also saw that many of the younger fighters like Amanda and Arturo Crespin from Las Vegas or Michael Coca were simultaneously working on their educations and advancing in their careers. Michael, for example, is an engineer with Intel and the Crespins are students at UNM. In the case of Natalie Roy, she is also a vet tech at Smith’s Veterinary Clinic in Santa Fe.
I went to this fight to photograph but had little luck because of the wires of the cage. Nonetheless some of these before and after shots show the intensity of the evening. For the most part, the fighters were very evenly matched and it was almost impossible to predict the outcomes.
Later I went to Natalie’s gym, ANK/ Santa Fe Muay Thai on Richards Lane in Santa Fe. She has owned this gym for some ten years, has 85 to 105 students at any one time and offers training in Muay Thai kickboxing, Western style boxing, Kali, Jiu jitsu, Judo, Fitness classes and Personal training for men and women of all ages. She began fighting at age 8, started with Thai boxing but later became a regular boxer because it was easier to get fights. I saw her two Brandi Montoya fights; she won one and lost the other. Now she has switched to mixed martial arts, believing that it has a bright future. Last December she went to Thailand to train and hopes to do so again this year.
Why is this important? I asked her. To instill a sense of confidence. To be able to protect yourself. To develop self-control and be able to restrain yourself. To walk with some pride.
The protection of women is an enormous issue these days, particularly regarding sexual assaults in the military and on college campuses. Look, for example, at the lengthy front page article in the Sunday, May 4 issue of the New York Times entitled “Fight Against Sex Assaults Holds Colleges to Account.” Unfortunately, in my opinion, the article is almost exclusively about what happens after the assault, what kind of counseling should be available, how should the assault be investigated and what kind of a justice system a college or university should have. (Having worked in the criminal justice system as a defense attorney, I’m not convinced that colleges and universities will be able to create their own justice systems in ways that guarantee constitutional rights to everyone who is involved.)
My real concern, however, is that this article says virtually nothing about prevention. Seeing Natalie Roy and the other fighters at the Camel Rock Casino convinced me more strongly than ever that self-defense can be an invaluable part of the effort to reduce violence and assaults. Yes, it seems unfair; we should have a right to be safe but that’s unrealistic. That’s why the training that Natalie Roy provides for others is probably more important than her success in the cage. In the meantime, however, she has another fight on June 14. I’ll be there.
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