Fighting is all I know. That’s why she’s not going easy on me. Misty’s killer right hand slams on my stomach, hurting me with an “Ulf!!” and bending me as I look at her and back up. But I know Misty; she’s coming right on it with a hard left hook to my side, another hard right hand that scrapes my ribs and locking on a muay thai clinch, driving a knee into my weakening stomach, “OUGH!!” My eyes close and I stand straight up, though I feel my legs buckling; she wings a left hook right cross to either side of my head as I raise my arms, and bends me with another right hand to my navel, “UGGHHH!!!” Almost… we make eye contact and I see the determination in her face. She’s giving it her all and she’s not going to let up. She knows how dangerous I am, but that doesn’t matter to her.
This is what I like about Misty Storm; she’s never going to go easy on me, even if she knows I’m coming off the flu and thinking about my little brother, who just got released from a juvenile detention center. I told him to call me when he got out; I told him he could stay at my house and get a job at the gym. I’ve been supporting him ever since I found out he existed a few years ago. I don’t know of any other biological family, other than my mother, and we won’t be having any deep conversations any time soon. She’s in rehab and is so drugged up and loopy, she may have forgotten who I am. But my little brother Tavaris, in and out of juvenile centers, just like I was when I was his age. Didn’t know who he was until Hurricane Katrina when I went to Houston to volunteer and visit those people living at the Astrodome. I’m so worried about him; he pled to a lesser sentence and gave up some of his friends. That’s frowned upon by gangs and I saw him on Christmas, and I haven’t seen him since.
Misty takes her time, but to the naked eye, she’s moving very fast. Jab to my navel, right hand over the top that I block, left hook finds my liver, leg kick that I block. I pull her leg forward and she falls, but before I can lean over her, she throws a kick up at my head from flat on her back, then rolls to her feet. It’s time now and she knows it. This is a part of my training. Cutter said in this sparring match, Misty has to throw at least ten punches or kicks before I can strike back. She hits me with a straight left straight right to my raised arms then nails me again in the stomach “OUGH!!” I’m trying to breathe and she knows it. She comes in for another right to my stomach and I fire a left hook to hers… I hear her go “Uhhhh… uh…uh…uh” and I see the panicked look on her face; she’s hurt, but I’m hurt too. So what? I fire the right hand to her nose, her eyes roll back, she staggers and goes down. I get on her and try for full mount and I get it easily. I use my thighs to pin her waist between my knees and she pulls me down on top of her, looking for an arm triangle or just to hold me in place. I’m able to power out of her grip, hook my left arm under her left arm, turning her face to its right and covering her mouth, then use my right hand to hit her left side. She’s got my right left between her legs, but I can hear her moaning with every shot I land, and I really start picking it up, trying not to re-break her ribs, but to give her some passion marks. She tries to get to her stomach, and I shift so that she can; I bend her left arm behind her back in a hammerlock, power my legs underneath her for the body scissors, then use my right hand to hit the sides of her face. I know I’ve got her; she knows I’ve got her. But this is sparring, so I roll off of her, get on my back; she takes the mount and we start grappling.
“Time!” Corporal DeSade yells, and Misty gets up and pulls me to my feet. I go to the cooler, get two bottles of water and toss one to Misty. DeSade is like a taskmaster for us… he was a fighter years ago in death matches over in Iran; in fact, one of the wrestlers he trained is Elizabeth Said (pronounced “sigh”-eed) and she wrestles in OPW under the name “Death.” I don’t know what his real first name is, but he claims it’s Cardiac. They said he was so good, he would give his opponents heart attacks and that’s how he got the name. But I’ve seen him with his wife and kids; the guy’s a big softy just like the rest of the male trainers here. But he’s an asshole during camp for all of us. No matter how many times I do something, he’ll tell me something to put me down. He’ll remind me that I’m an orphan from the projects; he’ll say I’m still a nobody. He does that to all of us because every girl who walks in here has a chip on her shoulder, but like Cutter says, you gotta eat that chip and let it burn inside of you, until you become as hard as that chip and then, nothing can break you.
Misty- (smiling) Every time I spar with you, you just hit me harder and harder.
Me- Did I really hurt you, Misty? I’m sorry.
Misty- Just a little… lighten up, Alley. It wouldn’t be sparring if we didn’t feel it after.
Misty “The Perfect” Storm is my friend, but it wasn’t always like that. When I first met her, just like with DeSade, I thought she was an arrogant bitch. I thought she had a padded record of no name opponents and two victories over a very green Samantha, long before she became Queen Samantha, and Misty thought I was overrated. We took our differences into the ring one night and we worked it out. When you fight somebody and she hits you and you know she hurt you, you have to respect her to an extent. We respect each other. Misty is 5’7” 130 lbs with curly black hair and blue eyes and she’s got a father who’s both African and Native American and a mother who’s Mexican. She’s out of Chico, California, a town that’s known for putting out a lot of female fighters and legitimately tough girls, like Christina Munoz, but Misty’s got a nobility about her. She did a lot of training with Siena Blaze and worked on toning up Marie B’s submission skills before she came over and started working with us. She’s recovering from a bunch of injuries, and I’m helping her get back to the sharp undefeated knife that she is while she’s helping me get ready for my next couple of fights.
Misty- I’m Misty Storm and my job is to kick Allison Payne’s ass every day, haha. I love fighting and I love working with great fighters. The team here is so professional and we’re really getting everybody in shape and trying to get some good energy going. It’s a great experience.
Q: What do you think of Allison’s opponent?
Misty- Katora is… exactly the kind of opponent Allison does well against, but Alley does well against anybody she fights. Katora rushes in, throws a lot of punches and kicks; she has no ground game, but she’s got a solid guard. But behind that guard is a nice soft body. Allison isn’t going to have to look for her and Allison is going to either knock her out or submit her.
Misty fought Katora on the Ultimate Catfighter show and Misty got the decision, despite breaking her arm, and Katora breaking Misty’s nose, and ribs. I’m not taking Katora lightly because I don’t take anyone lightly I get into the cage with.
(Interview with Katora who is 5‘3“ 135 lbs with long curly black hair, blue eyes, and is from Cuba- You know, no one is giving me much of a chance, and that’s fine. I’ve been an underdog my whole life, you know? I came over here on a boat from Cuba; I kick boxed and fought in muay thai all over the world; I have martial arts dojos in New Orleans and in Miami and I am a black belt in five different disciplines. I think people look at me and see that I’m 5’3” and I’m kinda curvy and they think “oh, she can’t fight,” but anyone who’s seen me fight knows otherwise.)
I’ve definitely seen Katora fight. I’m very impressed with her and I see how Samantha has improved her own fighting ability by sparring with Katora every other day. I don’t worry about trying to figure my opponents out; I have trainers for that. I worry about executing the game plan they give me, and if something changes in the ring, then I do what’s natural, but rarely has that happened.
(Interview with Katora- It’s gonna be a war, man. No disrespect to Allison Payne, but I’m not going in there to kiss her ass. If people think she‘s gonna hit me a couple of times and I‘m gonna drop, they‘re in for a surprise. Every time I fight, my pride, my life, it‘s on the line, man. So, I give it my all and I have 27 wins and 25 knockouts to show that. The only loss on my record wasn‘t even a loss, but if the judges wanted to give Misty that fight… whatever. I‘m over it.)
I’m jogging through the lower 9th ward… still so much damage from Hurricane Katrina here; some of the houses are still turned upside down, I mean literally turned upside down. They’ve got all kinds of stray dogs and cats running around and the gangs are back and the crime is horrible. I’ve got on a gray jogging suit and sneakers and a gray pullover cap and I’m listening to a compilation of insults that the fighters I’ve fought in the past and fighters I’ve challenged who didn’t accept have to say about me. After I beat them, they always change their tone… well, most of them do. I’ve always felt like the world has been against me from the moment my mother told me that I was worthless, that I was a mistake, that she didn’t want me. My mother was the victim of a rape by a White Supremacist and that’s how she got pregnant with me. She didn’t even know she was pregnant until four months in. She wound up having me prematurely and I weighed two pounds, two ounces. After that, she tried to commit suicide.
(Allison is at a rape victims’ clinic, talking to a room full of women) “I had to spend part of my childhood in crack houses in the same neighborhoods in the 9 that I jog through; I saw all kinds of stuff and because I was a light skinned girl… by the time I got old enough to walk, I was getting hit. I had my worst beating from my mom when she caught me trying to inject a needle between my toes… I was just doing what I saw her do. The kids I met during that time are all dead now. All of them. So, she just told me that if it wasn’t for me, she’d have a normal life. She was selling drugs and selling herself to support me. So, she just left me in the park one day alone… and the next time I really saw her, I was 16. I had been in foster homes and every school they put me in was hell. They told me I had a learning disability, but I learned that every man and woman I ran across who ever told me I was beautiful tried to fuck me or beat me up.”
(One woman asks Allison how she got started fighting)
Y’all want to know when my career started? It started on the street, but you know, they said I had a learning disability, but I was watching OPW and UFC and PRIDE when I could. I was learning those moves. They had these guys who would come and watch, White guys and they came up to me and told me I should fight for a living. I actually almost choked one of them out because I thought they were going to try and rape me. But I had to pay to fight and that’s how I got my start. I just had a lot of anger and I didn’t mind forking over some money, especially when it was so easy to steal it. Everybody around me was a drug addict except me; taking that money didn’t make me feel bad because I knew what it would otherwise be used for. The world will make you if you let it. But you have to make you, make yourself stronger and better because when you’re fighting, you know it can’t get any worse than where you’ve already been. But to fight or do anything in life, you gotta have that inner strength. You can‘t let your bad experiences destroy you.”
The girls and boys I would fight, they didn’t know how to put on an armbar or a rear naked choke. When I was in juvenile detention centers, I’d read about all that stuff. They had books on yoga…
Q: You do yoga? Allison Payne does yoga?
(smiling) Yes, I do yoga. I chant too. But I would watch OPW wrestling and I’d watch Rachel Apache and Lady Jasmine and Siena Blaze and Riptor… I’d watch their techniques and their moves because you’ve got people who try to do that stuff and they don’t know how. I wanted to learn how to do it right. I’d watch the UFC and Royce and Renzo Gracie, Ken and Frank Shamrock, Mark Coleman, Dan Severn, Vitor Belfort, I’d watch all that stuff and I’d be spending more and more time in the library. And it kept me away from the rapists and druggies. When I came home, nobody gave a damn; see, being in a foster home… sometimes, you get in a good one, but for me, they just put me with more abusive people. I’d jog to the library; I’d go to one of the underground clubs where I had to pay to fight, go in there, and I’d fight using my submissions only. I wasn’t a puncher at first; I was a submissions fighter. I learned by watching professionals on television, but the girls I was fighting weren't professionals. I felt like making them quit was better than knocking them out or really injuring them. I remember hearing Lady Jasmine say something like that. I never wanted to really hurt anyone.
I remember, I fought this White girl named Jane Bowen, and they said she was Arian Nation and she grabbed me and started punching me in the stomach and she was using all kinds of racial slurs and just really pounding my stomach. I remember reading about Jack Johnson and how he fought this White boxer who had been ducking him and Jack Johnson would stand there and let himself get hit in the stomach because they’re was some rumor about Black people being weak to the stomach. That’s what I was thinking about while she was throwing me all over the cage. I had a cut above and below my left eye and my ribs were bruised up. And then, I realized how low she was carrying her arms, and that she was getting tired. I threw a right hand and it busted her eardrum. I threw a left hook that hit her in the stomach, she threw up blood. I threw a head kick that hit her on the right side of her face and her cheekbone and nose all went into her face like I had pounded out a wrinkle. She went down and they didn’t stop it until she was all busted up. I thought I had killed her; I honestly did… it was a weird feeling to look at my hands and see them covered in blood because before, I was fighting because of the practice, but that’s when I realized where my anger could take me. That’s when I realized how hard I could hit. I had to become a more complete fighter, so I joined a boxing club and I’d go to night clubs and deliberately start fights with the bitchiest people there just to practice my boxing. A lot of those fights lasted as long as I allowed them because I was trying to do a punch or kick just right. I had weapons pulled on me; I disarmed them and hit them even harder. I can honestly say that I’ve never lost a fight in the street, in the ring, or in the cage. A lot of girls and guys got their shots in, but I never felt like anybody beat me when it was over.
Who was your favorite fighter?
Rachel Apache. When I was watching her on television, I saw the confidence and the never-ending black hair and the way she carried herself. She was just unbelievable and a winner in every sense of the world. When I think of a strong woman, Rachel Apache is who I think of because she’s says she’s the best and then, she proves it. A lot of the girls I know who watched fighting loved Rachel because she was like an escape… a real life superhero who told us through her victories over men and really great female fighters that we could rise from the ghetto, rise from abuse, rise from addiction, and be something classy and something… (eyes tearing up) just be something. When she beat Siena, that was it for me… I was ten and I got to watch that match and it was that Siena had never lost and she always found a way to win and Rachel beat her by reversing her own finishing move on her. It was the greatest high for me to see someone who wasn’t corrupt inside win for a change. No offense to Siena, I love her too, and she did a lot for me just by fighting me, but Rachel was the purest thing in the business; she just won. And I always remember that because as I’ve gone through my career I’ve concentrated on winning, not abusing my mind or my body. My mother and so many other people said I wasn’t going to be anything; I got offered drugs to use; I could’ve been a prostitute; I could have six kids or be dead right now. But I’m not because after I saw that match, I was gonna live differently. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t sway from time to time, but once I got serious about fighting to make money and kicked those boys to the curb, I cut all that stuff out and just tried to live honest. I got that from Rachel Apache.
Q: So, could we say that Rachel indirectly created you?
If you want to. I would say that I created me, but I used Rachel’s example as a guide because she was what I was trying to live up to. She doesn’t know how many lives she saved just by being who she is. Christina Munoz and I used to talk bout that all the time when we trained together. And I knew I couldn’t be Rachel, but I knew that if I thought I could, I might be able to get out of the ghetto and be something. Now, I’m the number one ranked fighter in the world; I’ve beaten a bunch of current and future hall of famers and I’m still undefeated. Rachel won’t fight me.
Q: If you love her so much and she’s inspired you as much as she has, why do you want to fight her so badly?
Because no matter what I do in this sport, every great fighter in our universe will be compared to Rachel Apache because she is considered the best that ever fought. At first, I wanted to make a big payday with her, but now, it’s about facing everything that I’ve tried to be.
Q: But it’s come out that Rachel isn’t as perfect as she’s put on. She was dumped Angelo Thunderhawk after they got engaged, then they got married. She hasn’t always played the good guy and she’s expressed a bitterness towards some of the current stars, Glory in particular, and she’s lost her cool several times during interviews and during her matches.
That doesn’t matter. And I can’t knock her for putting down Glory; I do that all the time. She’s human; she makes mistakes, but when she’s focused, she’s the best and in my weird way, I feel like the best way I can pay her back is to face her.
Q: Not to mention, her biggest imperfection may be that so many people think she’s ducking you. The last time you two were supposed to fight, she turned out to be pregnant days before the fight.
I… I don’t know what to say about all that. The woman is my hero; I’d hate to think that she’s avoiding a fight with me, but that’s something you’d have to ask her. That’s why, as many times as we’ve been in the same place at the same time, I’ve never gone up to her and asked her for a fight or why she won’t respond to my challenges. That’s how much I respect her. I let my team handle that stuff and I go out there and fight whoever is in front of me.
Q: You and your trainer, General Cutter, have a really special bond, don’t you?
He… (starting to cry) he claimed me as his daughter about two years after we started working together. I was 23, but he still took me as his own. He’s got me reading so many books; I’m on Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and I just finished Machiavelli’s The Prince. I’m learning about the vicious nature that some people take in this world and Marx is saying that a perfect society is one without classes, where people only get what they need. He doesn’t control me and he knows that I’m not going to be fighting for much longer because I never intended to. But I love that man; he comes up with some crazy training techniques and at first, the books he had me reading were hard to get through, but I understand how reading about all those different theories can help better me as a fighter and as a person. Believe me, he quizzes me on that stuff hahaha. Captain Steve Dunn is an offensive genius; his punching, kicking and grappling drills are great and though I really hated Alexia Paige before we fought, I love her as a sparring partner and a part of my team. Shakena Sexy is with us and she’s a down to earth sweet girl, who’s got a great nice loving way about her… but she’s a little naïve. We’ve got a new girl named Tasha (from my story “No Parking On the Dance Floor”) who’s got a lot of potential and we’re getting her endurance and fitness in better order because she’s got a lot of natural skill. We get new girls and guys coming into the gym on an hourly basis, but we hired some new people, most of them folks we already know, to help us out. Siena let Misty come over and give us a hand, but Misty and I make no bones about us fighting each other some day. I…
General Cutter (Allison’s father via adoption, and the head trainer at Cutter’s Camp/Team Payne)- I need to speak with you Alley.
(From a distance, we can see Cutter telling Allison something and Allison putting her face into her hands as Cutter hugs her. Allison’s crying is very loud and the door to Cutter’s office closes. After about twenty minutes, Allison rejoins us, wearing her gear)
Q: May we ask what that was about?
They found my brother… they found him in a bag in some grass near the Industrial Canal. It hasn’t fully sunk in yet. I’m the only able family he has…….. I have to go identify his body today. He said he was going to call me……..
Q: I’m sorry to hear that…
It hasn’t sunken in yet; I’m still sitting here looking at my phone and waiting for him to call and let me know where he is.
(Everyone in the gym, including Shakena, Tasha, and Misty, with DeSade, Dunn, and Cutter, all hug Allison at once, the hug is a huddle of love and many tears are shed.)
Cutter- We’ll all go with you, Allison. We’re here.
Misty- If you need anything from me, you know I’m here.
Allison- Just don’t go easy on me.
(Allison and Misty spar hard and while I never got to ask her how she got the nickname “The Nightmare” or what other weird techniques Cutter uses or why the men on her team all have military ranks as nicknames, I have a much better understanding of who she is. This is Brett Mathern, signing off.)
