Brittney Elkin long ago established herself as a certified badass. In addition to competing in MMA, she’s also part of Fight to Win Pro’s Team No Sleep — basically the crew that does all the literal heavy lifting to make the magic happen on stage. She’s also one of the promotion’s most frequent competitors and goes out of her way to compete in other tournaments as well. Basically, this fighter and mother doesn’t understand the phrase “give up”, and she proved it when she realized she wasn’t going to be able to cut the extra six ounces she needed to make weight for her first Bellator fight.
So she literally cut it off.
Elkin’s weight cut was no joke; she normally walks around on an already lean frame at about 176 lbs, and she had to cut down to 146 lbs with just three weeks’ notice. It was a daunting task, but she wasn’t about to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime (or give up $1,000 of her purse money for missing weight). She’d already dropped most of the weight through hard diet, exercise, and water loss, but with just two more hours to go until her deadline, she knew that there was nothing else she could do. Well, almost nothing.
“You hear lots of girls joking about cutting their hair off to make weight, but I knew I had to actually do it if I didn’t want to miss it,” said Elkin. She asked around to see if anyone would be willing to do it for her, tied her hair up in a tight ponytail, and with just a few snips of some sharp scissors, Elkin had pulled off a real-life Mulan moment. And yep, she made weight.
Despite feeling a bit dizzy once she started to eat and drink again, Elkin says she’s feeling “awesome.” “I’ve worked so hard for this,” she says. “I’ve just gotten so much support and I feel so honored to have this opportunity.”
For his part, F2W Pro CEO Seth Daniels couldn’t be more impressed with the affectionately nicknamed “Big Bird”. “This wasn’t something I didn’t expect from her. She’s savage as f***. I knew she’d do whatever it took. Thirty pounds in three weeks is an immense amount of weight for a guy, let alone a girl. We knew from the start the fight would be the scale, not whatever went on in the cage.”
Elkin’s lifestyle is far from ideal for any fighter, let alone one who has to drop that much weight. “She was on the road the entire time working, and she even had her son with her,” said Daniels. “Everyone at Bellator was super impressed, too. When you see all these male fighters whining and b*tching about having to cut weight and then you see her not even hesitating to do whatever it takes, that makes an impression.
Now that the hardest part is over, Elkin can finally look forward to her fight tomorrow on July 14, where she’ll be going up against Amanda Bell for her debut.
