We had worked with both Grace Anderson and Vicky Church before so we were extremely excited for this one. It was to be a last minute K1 fight at CSFC Challengers 2, in which Vicky standing in and not at her usual fully trained level. Having an in-depth knowledge of each fighter's style, and indeed being friends with both really spices things up. Grace is an MMA fighter and strong woman who is very focused. Vicky is an unpredictable Muay Thai fighter, and with a Taekwondo background, you can be sure to see head kicks in her fights.
Before the fight we spent some time back stage with each of them. Neither of them knew anything about the other, so they really didn’t know how things would go. Grace was put in the unfortunate position of being a helper of the event, we witness her running around arranging the other fighters and doing a lot of leg work. There is no doubt that having to work before the event itself was going to impact her performance, we don’t blame Grace at all, but her management for putting her in that position. Vicky on the other hand was doing what you’d expect, relaxing before the warm up.
As each of the fighters entered the cage, the anticipation was unbearable for us. Here were two completely different styles of fighting, you could almost say it was power vs flexibility.
Unfortunately what we said earlier about Grace having to work all day on the event impacting her performance was right. Not to take anything away from Vicky's performance because she was as explosive as ever. Vicky won all three rounds with her aggression, pace and technique. Grace was not on the back foot by any means however, she was moving forward the whole time, she just didn’t seem to have a full tank as we imagined might happen. Grace is very classy in defeat though, it has to be said.
Grace Anderson Awakening Profile
Vicky Church Awakening Profile