By David Mayeda, PhD, FightTicker.com Social Issues Contributor

A few mixed martial artists have been heralded for their high educational accomplishments. But no elite mixed martial artist can come close to the level of education held by professional mixed martial artist, Rosi Sexton, who makes her home in the United Kingdom.

In this second part of a two-part interview (Part I), the MMA fighter with a PhD in theoretical computer science from the University of Manchester (now pursuing a second advanced degree is osteopathy) discusses balancing the multiple roles in her life, a match from September 2006 with Gina Carano, the state of women’s MMA in the United Kingdom and the United States, her perspectives on feminism, and her favorite Olympic events.

Professional and Personal Balance

FightTicker.com: Okay, as you mentioned, you have a little boy now. So you’re a mother, you’re a graduate student, and you’re a pro athlete. How on earth do you balance all these things?

Rosi Sexton: It depends on when you ask me. Sometimes if you ask me, I’ll just say, “I do it like this,” and other times, it’s just like going from crisis to crisis (laughs), and it seems like everything is getting put on the shelf aside from Luis (her son). Luis is the one thing that I don’t compromise on. I make sure he gets plenty of attention. I mean I’ve got great support around me, and he’s got a fantastic childminder (nanny). I have more respect for her than I think anyone else.

Aside from that, it really is just a question of jumping around and trying to keep everything near at the same time, and making sure I don’t come crashing to the ground. I did my exams for my course out here at the end of June, and as soon as that was out of the way, I just concentrated on training for this fight. And now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to pick up a course again, take some recovery days, and start getting ready before the next fight comes along. So it’s very much a case in just trying to (prioritize) things. It’s not really that easy, but generally speaking, I manage very well, most of the time (laughs).

FightTicker.com: Okay, so you just had your first fight under a 3-fight contract with ProElite. Is that correct?

Rosi Sexton: That’s right.

FightTicker.com: Do you have anything on the horizon right now?

Rosi Sexton: Well we’ve not heard anything yet. We don’t know who the next opponent is likely to be … I’m having a week off right now and then I’ll be back in the gym, analyze what happened in the last one, and take it from there.

FightTicker.com: Okay so what are your personal goals. You said long-term you want to stay in the healing (osteopathy) profession, but any short-term goals for MMA?

Rosi Sexton: Basically, my goal is to be top in the world. I want to be the best in my weight class. I think I’ve got a good few years left. EliteXC certainly seems to be doing a good bit as far as the women’s division goes. Hopefully I’ll get to fight the top women there, and we’ll take it from there. I’m not really tied down to anything. We’ll just see how things pan out. I’m definitely gonna stay in the sport. I might do some coaching. That’s something I’m looking forward to one day.

Sexton’s Match with Gina Carano

FightTicker.com: What’s your ideal weight to fight at?

Rosi Sexton: I think my best weight is 125lbs. If I had to pick a weight class, that would be it. 130lbs is a bit heavy. It means I’m going to be coming up in weight against an opponent who is a good deal bigger. I barely have to cut to make 130lbs. Before a fight, I normally weight 131 or 132, and my opponents are probably a great deal heavier than that.

FightTicker.com: When you fought Gina Carano, what weight was that at?

Rosi Sexton: Well, it was signed to fight at 135lbs. We got there, and she weighed in at 139, and she turned around to me and said, “You didn’t come all this way not to fight,” and let’s get a catch-weight. So we had to take it or leave it, and we took it. And it didn’t go that well. I look back at that, and there’s so many things I should have done better. But it’s water under the bridge now really. The thing that bugs me the most about it is I don't think that match up will happen again because of the weight difference. It’s like that was my one chance to beat her, and I think I screwed it up (laughs).

FightTicker.com: Well in cutting a lot of weight, it can sap your strength, and she didn’t have to do that.

Rosi Sexton: Yeah, I think if she’d made it all the way down to 135, it might have been a different story. Who knows? Could’a, would’a, should’a. Who knows what would have happened, if things would have been different. If she could make it to 135, I would definitely be interested in another match. People keep asking me that at the moment since we’re both in EliteXC now, but it would have to be at 140.

FightTicker.com: I honestly don’t think she will ever make 135.

Rosi Sexton: Yeah, I think short of chopping a leg off, that would be tough.

The State of Women’s MMA

FightTicker.com: So you mentioned ProElite is really doing a lot to push the women’s division. Are you happy with where the women’s MMA movement is going?

Rosi Sexton: Well yeah, I think a lot of good things are happening. I think generally with women’s MMA, it takes three steps forward and two steps backwards, and sometimes it seems like the other way around (laughs). But I think if you look at where women’s mixed martial arts is now compared to a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, I think we’ve come along tremendously. It doesn’t always look like we’re moving forward, but if you look at where we’ve come from, we’re in a lot better position now.

I don’t pay much attention to what people say on (internet) forums and things, but if you just take a general look, two years ago, if you posted a thread about female mixed martial arts on Sherdog for example, 100% of the people would be saying, “What do you want to watch female mixed martial arts for? Women shouldn’t fight, blah, blah, blah.” These days, the proportion of people making those kinds of comments is a lot smaller. And there’s a lot more people having intelligent discussions about certain female fighters. People know the female fighters and see the female fights and generally a lot more people know, “Yeah, women can put on a good show.” So I think from that point of view, ProElite and EliteXC have done great things. And I fought for Bodog for a few years. I thought they did great things as well in bringing a lot of good female fighters together under one roof.

And obviously there’s things I don’t like. The 3-minute rounds, I hate them. I absolutely hate them. The first thing we thought about when we got the call for the Debi Purcell fight was it’s a great opportunity. And then I thought, “Shit, it’s 3-minute rounds.” That messes my whole game plan up. I pretty much fight a style that’s suited for the longer rounds. So that’s something we had to work with. If they asked us if we wanted the 5-minute rounds, I’d say yes in a heartbeat.

I think it will come. I mean everyone is saying women should fight 5-minute rounds. The fighters are saying it. The commentators are saying it. The reviewers are saying it, and I think eventually, it will have to happen. It’s just a question of when, so I’m just gonna have to hang in there and wait for the inevitable. The thing is when you get caught up too much on things like that, you tend to miss that fact that we are so much farther along than we were before.

The feeling that I got at EliteXC when I was there was that they were very serious about pushing the women’s division. Everyone was very respectful, and I didn’t feel like we were being treated differently from the male fighters. Aside from the 3-minute rounds, I didn’t feel like there was any difference in our status within the organization. In fact, they were very enthusiastic about it. I was more impressed than I thought I’d be about their attitude towards women’s MMA.

FightTicker.com: That’s great. Are there opportunities in the U.K. like Cage Rage or any other organizations for women?

Rosi Sexton: Cage Rage really promotes women’s MMA now. One of my teammates trains up in Ireland. She’s been fighting for Cage Rage. She has a few wins now. I think she’s been getting a very good reception. The thing about female mixed martial arts in the U.K. is that people tend to be very positive about it. I think a lot of the negatives that we’re seeing in America, we don’t have so much of that because there’s different attitudes towards women’s sports over here, possibly because there’s more of a history of women doing things like Thai boxing. People have been very welcoming towards it almost from the start. It’s very rare that anyone approaches me with any negative comments.

I think the problem that we have is getting enough women on the shows. That’s always been a problem. I’ve always had a problem finding opponents. My teammates have the same trouble getting people to fight. All across Europe, there’s only so many female fighters. I mean that’s the difference with America and Japan. And I think that’s been a critical factor in the growth of female’s MMA over here. Just about all the promotions in the U.K. have always been very willing to push women’s MMA. I mean some have gone so far as to saying, “We’d love to put it on, but we can’t. We can’t find anyone.”

There’s a lot more women training now than there used to be, and we need to put them on more shows because that’s gonna encourage more women to get into the sport in the first place. I mean it’s a long process to get someone from when they first walk in the gym to their first fight. And I think having females showcased, that’s when you start getting women interested in it, signing up in the gyms. So a few years down the line, we’ll start seeing them (in pro fights). But it’s going to take a few years from when people start seeing female MMA to when we get past the grassroots level. And I think that’s going to be the next few years, we’ll see more and more women getting involved.

On Feminism and Favorite Olympic Events/Sports

FightTicker.com: Do you consider yourself a feminist?

Rosi Sexton: I don’t know. I don’t like labels generally. (Laughs) I prefer not to put myself into boxes. I don’t really know what a feminist is. I mean, the way I see things is I’d like to see a world where everyone – male, female, regardless of race – has a future in whatever they feel they’re suited to do.

And some women might want to be a scientist. Some might want to be an astronaut, engineer, or whatever, and some might just want to look after her kids. I think that’s equally praiseworthy. I think the person that I respect the most in the world is my son’s childminder. She’s brilliant at it, and I think that takes a gift. I think the same is true for men and women, and the great thing about modern society is that that is becoming possible. We’re at a state where people can follow their dreams if you will.

I’d hate to feel if someone couldn’t do something because there’s some prejudice that says women shouldn’t do this or shouldn’t do that. I don’t think that necessarily makes me a feminist. Like I said, I believe in equality, but that doesn’t mean that I believe that men and women are identical. I don’t think you’re ever going to have the same number of female MMA fighters as you’ll have male MMA fighters. I still think fewer women will get involved in the sport, but I think the ones that are interested in it shouldn’t be held back by stereotypes that women don’t do this or that as well (as men).

FightTicker.com: Are you watching the Olympics?

Rosi Sexton: I’m watching a little bit. I missed a lot of it this year (because of the fight), but I’ve watched bits and pieces. I love it, but I’ve just been busy this year.

FightTicker.com: What’s your favorite event to watch?

Rosi Sexton: I love watching the gymnastics. I think it’s something, there’s just something other-worldly about doing that stuff. To watch somebody do something like that, I just think, “How is that possible?”

FightTicker.com: Yeah, the balance beam freaks me out. I can’t believe how they do twisting flips on that.

Rosi Sexton: (Laughs) Yeah, I always think, “They can’t do that.” Yeah, I like watching all competitive sports. There’s something about competition I find compelling. Generally with the Olympics, I’ll watch whatever’s on, but I haven’t gotten to do that this year.

FightTicker.com: Is there anything else you’d like to add or people to thank?

Rosi Sexton: I should thank my coach, Karl Tanswell. He deserves a lot of the credit, and all the guys at the gym really who I train with, my training partners at Straight Blast Gym (Manchester). They’re a great bunch of people. And thanks to my sponsors, PhD Nutrition and TapOut, and CageFilm.com. And it’s been great talking to you. I enjoyed it.

FightTicker.com: Yeah, you too, I really appreciate your time.

Rosi Sexton: Okay, we’ll catch up again.

Dr. Sexton’s blog can be accessed here: http://rosisexton.wordpress.com/

David Mayeda, PhD, is lead author of Fighting for Acceptance: Mixed Martial Artists and Violence in American Society, the first political book on mixed martial arts that attempts to reform the sport by increasing violence prevention measures through interviews with forty mixed martial artists, including Randy Couture, Dan Henderson, Guy Mezger, Antonio McKee, Chris Leben, "Rampage" Jackson, "Mayhem" Miller, Travis Lutter, and Frank Trigg. Dr. Mayeda has also published numerous academic journal articles on youth violence prevention and discrimination in sports media.

(Photo courtesy of CageWarriors.com)