With a population of more than 560,000 and residing comfortably on the east side of Australia is the country’s sixth-largest city, the Gold Coast. Throughout the ’90s and 2000s, this would be where the life of Megan Anderson began.
Fast forward to October 2019, and the UFC featherweight returned to her home country at the biggest event in Australia and New Zealand MMA history. In doing so, it would be her first time competing on her native land since she last did four years prior.
As a kid growing up, Anderson never would have imagined herself as one day being able to say she was a professional face-puncher… but here we are.
An attendee of the private co-ed All Saints Anglican School, Anderson found herself trying to get into the sport of soccer during her youth. Something she admits to being terrible at accompanied by her being “extremely unathletic.”
Soccer was likely never going to be the sport for the Aussie anyway as the average height for female athletes in the sport is around 5-foot-7. Besides, she had other hobbies that captured her attention much more such as playing musical instruments like the piano and cello.
Now, the “extreme” maladroitness couldn’t be any further from the truth as she has transformed herself drastically over the years since finding her unexpected passion for MMA. A sport that demands overpreparation.
“There is no offseason in MMA like there is NFL, NBA, or baseball. There is no offseason, we are training all year round for maybe two 15 minute competition spots a year. That’s 30 minutes potentially in 365 days.” Anderson told The Body Lock.
“We put our bodies through so much and we train so hard to improve for such a little competition time that I think people can forget about the journey and it is so results-driven because a win, particularly in my division, I’m always one or two fights away from a title shot. But then a loss could be career-changing as well.”
Holding a 10-4 professional record to her name along with some hardware obtained during her time in Invicta FC, Anderson has seen the highest highs and the lowest lows in the sport from a results standpoint.
But for every outcome, there’s a path that takes the athlete there. And in Anderson’s case, before this last appearance, the focus seemed to be shifted on the wrong matter.
“There is a fine balance between being results-driven and being max effort driven,” she explained. “So I think people get so caught up – I say people and I’m talking about myself in particular – is I would get so caught up on the results. But I think one thing that we really have changed, particularly with this camp, is the people who care about me are going to be there for me whether I win or lose. That is never going to change and for me, it was more about… my biggest fear was always never fighting to my potential and the potential that I know that I am capable of. And James [Krause], my coach, we sat down before this fight, and he was like, ‘Look, if you go out there and you get knocked out somehow, it could happen, this is the nature of MMA, anything could happen, you have to respect the game. It’s fine. I’m gonna love you regardless, I’m here for you.’
“But you go out there and you put on a performance like I did in my Felicia Spencer fight, and I kind of wasn’t all there. I didn’t want to be there. He was like, ‘You have to live with that. All I’m asking is max effort. If you give me your max effort, and you still lose, I can’t ask for anything more.’ I said but if you give me your max effort and you live up to your potential then that’s more of a solidification for me that all my teammates who believe in me, and they see what I don’t, that they were right.
“If you train hard and you put in the time and you put in the effort… You know, winning is nice, of course. Winning is nice and losing is shit. I’m a sore loser, I don’t like losing,” Anderson expanded. “But for me losing has always meant more change outside of fighting than it ever was fighting. Because my skills are there. But my doubts were all about myself and how I thought about myself as a person that wasn’t a fighter. And that’s one thing that I’ve really been focusing on changing.”
Continued: Through it All, Stand Sure: Megan Anderson's magical night in Melbourne