It’s rare to find a woman fighting it off on the octagon; even rarer to find a woman with communications degree to get her message across with hard-hitting fists. But that’s the way it is with Emily Thompson. The 23-year old communications degree holder is making a living out of talking fists and flying knees.

And since the prospects for her are looking good – as she is now one of the new female recruits of the American Fight League – makes the case of Thompson even more remarkable.

Thompson is game to talk about the path that had led her to the sport of MMA and eventually to the AFL.

“Originally, I’m from Anchorage, Alaska,” Thompson explained. “They would put shows on there monthly. It always was exciting for me to go and watch. I was always like, ‘Man, if they had this for girls I would totally sign up. Where do I sign? Let’s get this going.’

“At one of the intermissions, actually, during one of those events, they were saying how they were looking for females to get started. So I was one of the few that went down and piqued my interest. I actually took a fight two weeks after that.”

The determined Thompson had found time for the sport. In 2005, when she had a time off from her studies, she was able to fight twice at the Alaska Fighting Championship. Her fighting instincts and athleticism (she played soccer in college) compensated for her lack of proper martial arts training, winning the two bouts that summer of 2005.

“If you call having an older brother and a bunch of friends beating you up martial arts, then yes (I had experience),” Thompson said of her status before her debut. “I didn’t have any real training background, which may not have been very smart. Or it could have been the smartest thing I’ve ever done because now it’s kind of what I’m doing for a living.”

Thompson knew that smarts do not make winners in MMA – nothing replaces real, arduous MMA training. Her next step was to seriously train for future bouts.

“I went to school at Sonoma State, where I just graduated,” Thompson explained. “I played soccer there all four years. I never had time to really make [MMA] a priority because playing a college sport is kind of like a full-time job anyways.

“But as soon as I graduated and finished soccer, I found Nor-Cal Fighting Alliance, which is where I train now. It’s kind of been history ever since. I threw myself right into the mix. I didn’t waste any time.”

“The way that we train up there is unlike any other gym I’ve ever seen before,” Thompson said. “I basically have a gym full of coaches. I don’t have just one coach. I learn from everybody in there. Dave Terrell is actually the owner of the gym and my main coach. He is the most knowledgeable person in jiu-jitsu in the world, if you ask me.”

After the two bouts in 2005, Thompson made a comeback to the ring this year. It’s a long break but the hiatus did not negatively affect Thompson as she earned a victory via TKO.

“I was still training periodically throughout that time off,” Thompson explained. “I just never had the time to actually get a fight and totally prepare for it. But it’s not like I wasn’t training or doing anything those three years — like I went off to Africa or anything to do nothing.

“I’m always active. I was always training in some sort of way. If it was soccer or anything, I was always active. I consider that I was off working out.”

Now, with college studies and sport behind her, Thompson is concentrated in getting top-notch training at Nor-Cal Fighting Alliance. As for her new contract with AFL, Thompson is eager to fulfill her three-fight deal with the organization.

“I was pretty happy with this signing,” Thompson said. “It’s a three-fight deal, and it’s 18 months. That’s what I look forward to — to know that I’m going to have three fights in the next year and a half.

“That’s the one thing that’s been so hard. It’s so unpredictable. I’m a very punctual person. I like to know when I’m going to be here or there, my training schedules. And having this kind of contract laid out it gives me a good heads-up of what’s going to be happening in the next 18 months of my life.”

And Thompson has a clear-cut fighting goal and philosophy, a testament that she is a no-nonsense fight artist.

“My goals are basically to beat every opponent that they put in front of me,” Thompson said. “That’s what I’m going to train to do. And that’s my job, to go and win.”