The Fighter and the Grandma

Grace and renewal through partially-covered eyes

Earlier this week, I watched a little TV with my husband while he ate a very late dinner. After flipping through channels, he settled on a replay of 2023 MMA championship match. “How about we just watch this one fight and then change it to something else?” He knows me well enough to offer that “something else.”

That’s fine, I said, and picked up my phone so that I could “watch” with my ears and avoid the jarring visual reality of combat sport. My devout Hungarian Grandmama used to watch boxing faithfully. She’d stand in front of the TV in her worn apron with fists clenched, taking little swings along with her favored boxers while the Infant of Prague and Sacred Heart looked on from the walls. I don’t have the same enthusiasm for bloodshed as my great grandmother, but neither do I pray as many rosaries as she did. Seems like she might have the edge on me but I doubt holiness is so linear as that. How easy it would be if intimacy with Christ could be tracked on a spreadsheet!

Anyway, I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong in MMA. I’d like to figure it out sometime, especially since I’m a grandma now. (Note to self: Put on apron before girls come over. Pray more rosaries.) Either way, my strong initial aversion to fighting sports has morphed into something I can’t quite call neutral, more like a love/hate relationship. It’s not my idea of a good time to watch men pound on each other, yet I love the athleticism, skill, grit, power, and discipline. I’m impressed by the maturity of a number of young fighters I have met locally. I accept this odd place where I admire the masculine inclinations without fully understanding them. Still, there’s always a loser in these contests and my maternal heart struggles every time.

For those of you unfamiliar with the sport…

MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) is a full contact combat sport that permits fighting techniques from a range of different combat disciplines such as BJJ, boxing, kickboxing, judo, karate, wrestling, and Taekwondo. These athletes train separately in each discipline and then compete under one set of MMA rules. They win by knockout, submission, or judges’ decision.

On this particular night, I was protecting my feminine sensibilities by watching only loosely while simultaneously reading articles on my phone. But before the match even began, I was startled into looking up. I almost couldn’t believe it. The music the fighter chose for his championship match walk out song was one of my own “fight” anthems; one of those back pocket songs that I pull out when I am gripped by grief or fear and need to be led to the foot of the cross by a testimony of truth. Instead of the typical fight hype music, he chose a praise and worship song, Goodness of God by Bethel Music, and he was singing it as he prepared to enter the octagon.

I couldn’t find the official PFL footage of the walk out but I did find this raw cut filmed from the crowd (h/t Steve Cunningham for finding it):

I was fully attentive at that point and I leaned forward, wide-eyed, watching a stranger give testimony in a most unlikely place at a time when my own “fight” has been weighing heavily on me. We’re all fighting battles, though most of them will never play out in a public place like an octagon. So I watched the fight until the end (still cautiously but a little less so) and marveled at how the testimony of those who know the grace of God will not be suppressed. And how beautiful is the boldness of this particular witness.

It is easier to be silent while we work out our profession of faith, avoiding the scrutiny of the world. Accountability is an enormous pain in the neck. We will fail sometimes, and so our public testimony is necessarily a humiliation at times; a surrender of ego, of reputation, maybe of possessions, of victories, of human consolation.

In the end, Impa Kasanganay won the PFL 2023 Light Heavyweight World Championship. His parents joined him for the celebration in the center of the octagon and the song resumed playing, the words rising above the cheers of the crowd. And the family sang together…

All my life You have been faithful. All my life You have been so so good!

The view from my living room that I posted in my stories (now in highlights) on Instagram. The music didn’t come through in the original recording so it’s overlayed…

I got choked up as their testimony of faith rang into my soul. It’s not just true for them but true for all. Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Though the Spirit is always new, He is also constant.

Then, of course, I googled the fighter’s name. I know very little about Impa other than what’s on his Instagram, but I sit in gratitude for the kind of confident masculinity that can marry an MMA career and faith without flinching. This is not a compartmentalized Christianity where a man gets to live according to his passions on Saturday and then go to church on Sunday, but a transformed life that seeks accountability because he earnestly seeks Christ. If he screws up, people will know it and he’ll own it. And that’s a deeply authentic way to live.

“You can be a strong man and still be a loving man, and that’s what I want to show.”

The other fighter, Joshua Silveira—with a tattoo of the ichthus on his chest—fell out of the limelight when he lost, left to fight another quiet battle that comes with such loss. I don’t know his story, but we all know that kind of battle well.

For my part, I was again reminded that the Holy Spirit is alive and moving and will grant consolations in unlikely places in His time, in His way, for His glory, for our healing. I expect answers to my recent prayers mid-fight, I just never expected that the replay of an MMA event would lead me into a place of deep prayer, gratitude, renewal, and peace regardless of the answer.

He IS the answer. And it a good day to be alive.

I don’t know what your fight is but I know you have one. Whatever it is, I’m praying for you today. God sees it all. He sees you, your goodness, your weakness, your grief. And He does not leave. Hang on. He’s got you. Blessed be God.

Full video context of this clip is HERE.

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