I asked Jessica about her training and the bout.
Here is her response:
"I teamed up with La Familia in November 2010. My goal was originally to do kick boxing classes to get into shape. There aren't many women interested in this sport around Gillette so I ended up attending many of the same practices as the rest of the team. In November 2011, I decided, "hey...I'm learning this stuff...I might as well use it. I want to get in the cage." I texted Mario...my coach and told him I was interested...and he said okay we will start getting you ready. It was the holiday season and not many people were doing a lot of training.
"After the holidays, I reaffirmed how serious I was and that I wanted to get in the cage. So we looked at the schedule and saw that there were fights scheduled in Gillette in April. I told Mario I wanted to be ready by then. He told me that for my debut fight, he wanted me to go out of town so there wasn't so much pressure...totally understandable. Well, in January, Mario took a fight in Worland.
"Unfortunately Mario lost due to a bad call by the judge...Mario took several hits to the back of the head which were not called. The ref stopped the fight and said Mario was not defending himself. Mario felt very defeated and very down on himself for letting the fight go the way it did. He was saying garbage like, "How can I be a coach when I cant even bring home a win? Why do you guys want me as a coach? I will never be a champion."
"These statements of NONSENSE drove me to my commitment of being a cage fighter. I wanted to be able to go into the cage and bring home a win to show Mario that it is his teams turn to shine...He can be the coach...and we will perform and bring home the trophies. And that is what I did. The first four weeks leading up to my fight, I was doing about an hour of cardio at the rec center then heading out to a two hour practice afterwords. Mario was in the gym every night with me and he took the time to do some one on one training to get me ready. It was very extensive and a lot of hard work.
"I learned a lot of things from Mario. Of course some of the other members of our team were in there too. Everyone has different teaching methods and they all go to good use when out in the cage. I am very thankful of Donnie Vitto for pushing me so hard. There were several times I wanted to quit and give up and he just kept pushing me.
"I brought home the win last Saturday night! Yes it was me performing out there but it was the teaching and the champion inside of Mario that got me there."
Jessica also has developed an appreciation for MMA as a fight photographer.
Below are some other links regarding Margaret Bloom:
http://www.colorado-mma-colorado-boxing.com/2012/01/margaret-blooms-wy-mma-blog.html
http://www.colorado-mma-colorado-boxing.com/2011/11/margaret-bloom-to-contribute-to.html
http://www.colorado-mma-colorado-boxing.com/2012/02/margaret-bloom-takes-home-belt.html
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See you at the fights!
