Canadian amateur mixed martial artist, Rachel Greenwood (0-1), will enter enemy territory she meets New Jersey’s Marissa Vanglahn (4-5) at Maverick MMA 19 on Saturday, May 21.
Greenwood, 28, will travel to Split Rock Resort in Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania, from Ontario, to meet Maverick MMA’s fan-favorite Vanghlahn who returns to the heptagon for a fourth time this weekend.
“I’ll go wherever they give me a fight,” Greenwood told MyMMANews. “If they give me Pennsylvania, I’m going to Pennsylvania.”
Greenwood has only one amateur fight on her record, a unanimous decision loss to Willow Morton at 247 Fighting Championships in Pittsburgh earlier this year.
“I was the one who was more aggressive and moving forward,” Greenwood said of her last fight. “I landed a lot more shots, but she had better wrestling than me. I learned, ‘don’t wrestle the wrestler.’”
While she may not have a lot of cage time under her belt, Greenwood has been putting in the work for quite some time.
“I started out as a boxer,” Greenwood said. “My boxing coach moved and I had to find a new gym and that’s when I walked into a Muay Thai gym. Then I ran into somebody who trained MMA and they took me down and I was like ‘ok, now I need to learn that.’ So it’s kind of like I went on this journey where I wanted to become a boxer but then different people taught me things along the way. I’ve had someone who knew Karate show me some karate and I thought, ‘that is useful. I want to learn that.’”
When the global coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Greenwood took a chance. She quit her job as a teacher for children with special needs, so that she could focus more on her craft in combat sports.
“For me it is about learning as much as I can, sparring as much as I can, and leveling up.”
Standing in her way this weekend, with a great deal more experience inside the cage, is Vanglahn.
“She’s got a lot more experience than me,” Greenwood said. “She’s fierce. I’ve watched some of her fights. I see a hard-hitter, a go-getter. She’s aggressive, moves forward. I’m expecting a lot of aggression and a hard fight. I’m not expecting it to be easy.
“I want to give a good, technical, aggressive fight. I don’t want to lose myself in aggression. I want to stay technical. A lot of people think of me as a strike because I’ve been striking for so many years, but I think of myself as a mixed martial artist. I’m hoping to display all that I’ve learned.”
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