Written by James Cooney, Daily Mail Australia
00:00 April 14, 2024, updated 00:04 April 14, 2024
- MMA star reveals he started MMA at a Gold Coast fight club
- Chelsea Hackett's father started a boxing club in a parking lot
- At age 12, he encouraged her to give it a try and she never looked back.
exclusive
Australian MMA fighter and reality TV star Chelsea Hackett has revealed that she started martial arts through an underground car park fight club when she was a child.
The 24-year-old personal trainer, who competes in the women's flyweight division of the Professional Fighters League (PFL), had a very unusual introduction to martial arts.
Hackett had been doing some Taekwondo since he was eight years old, but he really got into underground martial arts at the age of 12 on the Gold Coast.
“My father started the Chinese boxing team,” Mr Hackett told Daily Mail Australia.
“It was just normal, everyday men gathering in a parking lot.
“He made a deal with one of the business owners to basically use the parking lot as a fight club three days a week.”
“One day he told me to come down and train. I was 12 years old at this point, but he put me in a head guard and MMA gloves and told me to come down and train, which was much bigger than me. I left it with an old man. He set a timer for three minutes.
“He said, 'Go and do what you like.'”
“I just let loose. I threw the kitchen sink at this guy. Obviously, he wasn't trying to hit me, but then I had it inside me. I realized that there was – and my father realized that I had that kind of dog in me.
“I started doing it three days a week.”
Shortly thereafter, Hackett attended John Wayne Parr's Boonchu Muay Thai Gym on the Gold Coast, where he continued training until he was ready to fight.
Hackett, 19, turned to MMA where he has had great success and recently earned selection to the PFL's flyweight division.
In 2021, Hackett decided to appear on 'Australian Survivor: Brains vs. Brown', but he fell ill during the show, suffering dizziness and headaches for two days on set before ultimately suffering from extreme He was rushed to the hospital due to dehydration and infection.
Although her experience on reality TV was tough, Hackett believes it benefited her in many ways.
“You were in full operation. You're hungry, you're dehydrated, you're hot. You're sleeping in the bushes.
“So, making a TV show and having the producers in front of you all the time was tough, but it was a good experience.”
“It (the show) definitely built resilience in me and helped me in life in general.”
Hackett lost her most recent PFL match to American fighter Jenna Bishop at PFL 1 in San Antonio last weekend.
The Australian star later thanked his supporters on social media.
'That hurts. That’s not going to happen,” she posted.
“I'll be back in eight weeks for my second shot, but I need to catch up.”