Awakening Fighters: Dawn of the Female Era

By Claire Baxter

The Awakening Fighters website, from the statistics to the fighter profiles, is very, very real. Every statistic compiled as a ‘win’, ‘loss’ or ‘draw’ or no contest, represents a fight between two female athletes that occurred somewhere in the world. Professional fighting, amateur, muay thai and every other combat discipline you can think of, world championships and local competitions: all of this information unfolds on the Awakening Fighters website.

Explains founder and director, Rew Mitchell,

‘I wanted to include all combat disciplines, and fighters at every level.’

An estimated 36,000 female fights (or 300 per month) have occurred since 2012, when Awakening Fighters began the massive task of compiling statistics of fights, dating back to the 1950s. The site lists an impressive 180,000 to 200,000 of those fights. It was an ambitious project that sought to include any and all female fighters, anywhere in the world. Because the site is profile-based, each fight requires two entries: one for each fighter. At present, 20,000 athletes have contributed their fight data to Awakening Fighters. Incredibly, many of these athletes are in direct communication with Rew.

‘I like to make contact with the athletes; verify the information,’ says Rew. ‘I’m also a fan of fighting: I like talking to fighters.’

Rew pauses for a moment, thinking. ‘The website is for the fans as well as the fighters.’

So, who is Rew, and how did he come to build the premier website for female fighter profiles and statistics?

Originally a photographer who felt the call to create meaningful impact through his work, Rew stumbled across the idea of documenting female fighters while at the airport, traveling home from a conference on conservation photography. Rew saw a fight promo for an upcoming MMA fight between Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate. He was fascinated.

‘When I researched it, there were few photographers out there documenting these fighters in a way which truly captured the skill of the fighters and the essence of female fighting.'

‘Really,’ I ask, my curiosity awakened, ‘What is the essence of female fighting?’

As a female fighter, I am perhaps close to distilling the meaning of fighting for myself, and perhaps even something of my own essence in the ring, but what is the essence of female fighting from a social perspective, and from a gendered perspective?

‘Focus and skill,’ says Rew immediately. ‘The focus I see in the eyes of female fighters is amazing. Female fighters have skill, speed and lots and lots of focus.’

I’m curious about the desire of the photographer behind the photographs: why fighting, and why females?

‘I have a lot of respect for females: because females are the givers of life ’ says Rew, echoing the sentiments of awe and celebration of fertility that is perhaps to be found in many cultural beliefs systems around the world. ‘Female fighting, however, revealed females in a completely new lens: completely different to anything I ever saw when I was growing up.’

Rew, explains that he’d grown up in a world influenced by ‘lad culture.’

‘When I was a young man, newsagencies were full of magazines depicting women in a certain way. Women were sexualized in men's magazines, and in women’s magazines they were sort of just sexualized in a different way.’

Many of Rew’s female friends have shared with him the negative impact that the objectification of women had on their self-confidence and self-belief, and the way they lived their lives.

‘I saw an opportunity for female fighter photography to impact the world in a very different way. I felt like the world needed to know about female fighters. In many ways, it still does… I wanted to capture the essence of female fighting in my photography, using different angles, using lighting in a particular way, and show people.’

In trying to find out more information about fighters and events, Rew came up against a poverty of information.

‘There were some websites, certainly, and I did - and still do to a certain degree - rely upon sites like Tapology, BoxRec, Sherdog, but they tended to be limited to just one discipline, or one promotion.’

It was hard to get a complete or comprehensive data set across the board on female combat.

Again, Rew saw both the need, and the potential for impact.

Awakening Fighters was born. It was the first website ever to list multiple disciplines.

By Claire Baxter

Claire Baxter is a professional Muay Thai fighter based in Melbourne, Australia. She has written about Muay Thai, female Muay Thai fighting, weight cutting, Western Muay Thai fighters adapting to Thai culture and Thai fighting styles.