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May 1, 2015

Maureen Riordon’s Invicta Debut

Sachi Ainge

Maureen Riordon’s Invicta Debut

Coach Maureen Riordon is the newest member of the coaching staff at Easton Training Center Boulder. She’s now one of the main instructors in the kids’ Muay Thai program, and has recently taken on several adult kickboxing classes on weekday evenings. She signed with the Invicta Fighting Championship promotion last year, and on Friday April 25th, she had her first Invicta fight in Kansas City, Missouri.

 

Maureen, nicknamed Babyface, has been training in martial arts since 2010 focusing at first on no-gi grappling. She began her striking training in 2011, and accepted her first Muay Thai fight that June. She took her first MMA fight three weeks later. She’s had pro fights in kickboxing, MMA, and boxing, and her recent fight was her fifth professional bout. Maureen signed a multi-fight MMA contract with Resurrection Fight Alliance (RFA) in May 2014, and the day after her pro MMA debut, she was contacted by Invicta FC to sign a multi-fight deal with them as well. Reflecting on her meteoric rise into the all-female promotion, which frequently sends fighters into the UFC, Maureen says,

“To be signed with such large organizations right out of the gate was such a huge honor, especially considering the number of people that tried to discourage me from even attempting success within this industry. I am particularly proud to represent Invicta because of what they stand for as an organization. They want to put women on a platform to demonstrate to the world just how capable we are. I love representing an organization that holds female empowerment on a high platform.”
In her fight on April 25th, Maureen’s opponent was her former training partner Shannon Sinn. She and Sinn started their fight careers together in 2010, and were primary training partners for two years, before having a falling out in 2012. When asked whether it was strange to fight someone she knew personally, Maureen says it was interesting to meet her former friend in the cage, but in the end it was just business. She trained hard, and gave it her all. This was her first training camp at Easton, and she says her camp couldn’t have gone more smoothly. Chris Tramell was her primary coach for this fight, and she credits her excellent conditioning to their weeks of hard work.

 

Maureen2

 

In the end, Maureen came up on the wrong side of the decision, but she maintains that she is extremely happy with her performance. She “never once felt out of control, or even winded” during her three five-minute rounds with Sinn, and at the end of the fight, Maureen was smiling and on her feet, while a bloody and battered Sinn was tended to by the medical team. Though she doesn’t agree with the decision, she’s ready for her next move, and she’s excited to be back in the gym, adding things to her arsenal.  Since Chris was still getting to know her as a fighter during this camp, she says, “If that was how a fight camp went as strangers, I can’t wait to see what happens now that we’re family. Someone once told me, ‘Watch how family repairs holes,’ and now I understand what that meant.” Maureen’s next fight is a boxing match on May 29th in Denver, and she’ll be preparing for that over the coming weeks. In addition, she plans to be all over the mats, training hard to improve her Jiu Jitsu, wrestling, and Muay Thai.

 

Maureen believes strongly that an individual is responsible for his or her own destiny. In the early stages of her fighting career, when the doubters and detractors tried to keep her down, she kept pushing and training hard. And here she is, less than five years later, fighting under one of the most acclaimed MMA promotions in the country. Maureen won’t stop there. She uses her fighting career to spread her message, “I love the confidence and self-love that martial arts has helped me to develop, as well as the ability my career gives me to share those same joys with others, especially kids.” Her passion is evident in everything she does, and we are so proud and happy to have her as a role model for our budding martial artists.

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