I used to sell cars before becoming Bellator’s lead ring girl role… now I am training for my first MMA fight
BELLATOR beauty Louise McKie has travelled the world with mixed martial arts’ second-biggest promotion – but she hasn’t always lived a glitzy and glamorous lifestyle.
The Newcastle-born ring card girl has enthralled Bellator fans for the best part of four years – starting her career with the promotion after they visited her hometown.
But before she was jetting around the world with Bellator, she was selling cars back in the Toon.
She told The Daily Star: “Before I started with Bellator and in the entertainment industry, I always worked in sales, I sold cars and then I went to be a sales manager at one of the local clubs in town – and that is where I actually made the contact.
“So I kind of signed up to do in small events, which is like your typical white-collar boxing shows. It was an extra bit of money on the weekend.
“And then an email pinged through for Bellator coming into Newcastle, which is obviously my hometown.
“When I seen that I was like ‘Oh my goodness, like this is exciting’. But obviously, I was new to it. I didn’t really have much experience.
“But I put myself forward and if I get it, thinking ‘If I get it great. If I don’t then it was worth a try.’
“Luckily, I actually got it! So I went to the Newcastle show.
“I can’t say that I remember much of it because I was kind of just in awe of what was going on.
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“But yeah, the Newcastle show producers really liked it I got on really well with the team, which was great.
“Then I got invited back to Ireland and since then I’ve never really looked back.”
McKie has loved every minute of working with the MMA promotion, saying: “It’s been a crazy [time].
“Off the back of it, I then got signed with Monster Energy. It’s incredible that this ride first started back in 2019.”
Seeing some of the best mixed martial artists in the world ply their trade inspired McKie to try her hands at Muay Thai – which she began learning in Thailand shortly after Bellator’s co-promotion show with RIZIN last December.
She said: “I started training Muay Thai to kind of just get a bit of insight into the sport having seen the emotional side of it in fighters being away from the families.
“A lot of the time I found myself thinking ‘why do they do this?’
“This is crazy. Like it puts a lot of strain on a lot of different people.
“And I think for me, it was kind of figuring out why they do that and why they put their bodies through such a gruelling regime.
“I did a little bit of training and then I fell in love with it.
“I totally get why it’s addictive and why people love it the way to do and why people ultimately go in the cage and fight on fight night.”
Training Muay Thai has given McKie a new appreciation of combat sports, so much so she may set foot inside the cage herself.
She said: “I don’t think I’d ever be on the same level as any of our Bellator guys but never say never!
“I wouldn’t say I would definitely do one, but never say never.”