Bellator 190: Cornwallian Kate Jackson took up MMA 'to taste getting hit in the face' now on cusp of world flyweight challenge

Speaking to Kate Jackson it's a wonder she is a fighter. From Newquay, perhaps she should have been a surfer, with the Cornish town being a hub for water sports and the centre of the UK surf industry. But that theory is quickly put to bed. "I can't surf at all. I can swim fairly well but I've never done any of the surfing or body boarding or anything like that. Of course, Newquay is a massive surf town. A lot of my team mates surf. But it's not something that ever particularly appeals to me. I had really bad eczema growing up. I still can't really take salt water." 

Instead, Jackson chose the toughest women's sport on earth - mixed martial arts.  "I'm just grateful every day that my skin holds up for jiu jitsu and wrestling, really," Jackson told Telegraph Sport as she prepared to meet Canadian 'name' Valerie Letourneau in a flyweight co-main event contest at the Bellator 190 event in Newcastle tonight.  

Jackson had started with karate aged 15, and then added judo a year later. "It was actually a bargain with a friend -- she wanted me to scuba dive with her, and in exchange she'd come to classes with me. The scuba diving never really happened but we did classes together for a few years. It just went from there really. Karate wasn't quite enough. I wanted something a bit more real. Judo gave me that to an extent. Obviously the judo competitions are very, very real."

But Jackson wanted to know what would happen "when I got hit in the face".  "It seems a weird thing to say nowadays because of the prevalence of MMA and full contact fighting, but fifteen years ago that was a very real question to want to answer. What happens against someone who is trying to hurt you just as you are trying to hurt them? In the time Jackson has been fighting, women's MMA has mushroomed with a legion of stars led by 'Rowdy' Ronda Rousey, who shifted the paradigm.  

"I keep thinking, like a lot of people, if only I was 10 years younger, but really I've got opportunities that a generation of fighters before me, especially females, just didn't have," explained Jackson to Telegraph Sport. "When I started there was no thought it could be a full time career. That's a possibility now. You can train and fight full time as a woman. Ten years ago that was just inconceivable. "I've had 12 pro fights, I think, and that's going back to 2009. People can get that in three years easy nowadays and I'd have loved to have that opportunity. I've tried to keep busy as much as I can and I've had a few standout fights in there, I think. I've had over 20 fights in total now, and The Ultimate Fighter got me a few more as well."

Her toughest fight, she recalled, was with Polish star Joanna Jędrzejczyk, who made five defences of the UFC women's strawweight crown, having lost the belt. "It was a hard fight because it was in her country and her hometown. Which, in hindsight, was perhaps not the most sensible thing to do. That was the first time really I had fought an opponent who was so tough. In the first round I was doing fine, I probably edged that round...but psychologically I just wasn't used to that level of difficulty. So I didn't deal with it very well and I fought really badly in the second round. My coach didn't think it was appropriate for me to go into the third round."

"Back then I was inexperienced and there wasn't really much in the way of help or guidance from the referee or ring doctor. He decided to call it. We talked through it and it's fair enough really. I kind of wished I'd kept going but at the same time it might not have ended very well. I'll never know, which, as a fighter, is not something you want. You want to know what would have happened if you kept going. That was a tough fight but I'm glad I did it and it happened because it was what I needed to re-evaluate and change my game and come back stronger. It's the only stoppage on my record, and no one really wants that to happen."

There is talk of the winner of Jackson and Letourneau fighting the newly installed Bellator flyweight champion Ilima MacFarlane, the Hawaiian having won the inaugural belt last month.  

"It's something I'm aware of, but if I can't get past Valerie it's irrelevant. The fight in front of me is always the most important fight because if I don't get past Valerie that fight won't happen, or won't happen in March for certain. There are other women in the division I'd like to fight, but it's this one first," reasoned the very logical Jackson.

The Cornwallian certainly knows what she is in for. "She's incredibly tough. I think most people at this level are. She doesn't seem to have any problem at all with being hit. Which, from my point of view, isn't ideal because if you hit someone you prefer to get a reaction out of them. She presses forward."

"In a way that makes things easier because I'm not going to have to do any chasing, but it also has its own problems with timing and volume striking as well. It's staying engage, staying in tight, and just being aware of the stuff she normally throws. I think every fight is the most important fight of my career, within reason. She's well known, so beating her would help me going forwards in the flyweight division." Jackson is just being modest. 

Victory tonight would be huge. And if she looks good, even as the underdog which she is, the USA will beckon next year for a title shot. Jackson wanted to know what it was like to be hit in the face. Now she's within touching position of a world title shot.