Exclusive | ‘My parents didn’t want another lady, they left me to die’: First Indian to win UFC fight Puja Tomar | MMA News

Puja Tomar (Instagram Photo)

NEW DELHI: A small village, Budhana, in Uttar Pradesh was wrapped in an unfamiliar aroma of festivity. People turned up in numbers. Puja Tomar had turn into a queen in a single day. Garland after garland was positioned round her neck, flower petals showered down on her, and everybody pushed ahead, anticipating a handshake. It was as if she was a nationwide hero. But, wasn’t she?
In June final 12 months, Puja grew to become the primary Indian to win a UFC bout, beating Brazil’s Rayanne Amanda dos Santos in a razor-close cut up determination.
For her, this wasn’t only a fight gained in an octagon — however a fight that started the day she was born.
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“My parents didn’t want me,” Puja tells TimesofIndia.com, not with bitterness, however a quiet defiance. “When I was born, my father fainted. They had already decided not to raise a third daughter. I was left in a pot, to die.”
Puja Tomar was born within the village close to Muzaffarnagar, the place the worth of a woman was usually weighed towards the eventual dowry.
Her two elder sisters, Anjali and Anu, had been already defying the percentages: one grew to become a nurse, the opposite an MBBS physician. But Puja? She was the one no one wished.
“I always felt I had to prove something. Not just to my family, but to the world. That a girl isn’t a burden.”

Her earliest heroes, however, weren’t athletes or politicians — they had been the likes of Jackie Chan and the characters she noticed on grainy YouTube movies.
However, she didn’t watch them for leisure. She watched to be taught. By twelfth grade, an area karate instructor got here to her faculty. And that was all she wanted.
One day, in a karate match, seven-year-old Puja, all the time keen to throw a punch at boys, hit an opponent so exhausting they handed out. She was instantly disqualified.
“This sport isn’t for you — try something else,” she laughs. “But it felt like I was in a movie — like Jackie Chan. I just knew I wanted to fight.”
“I started off just wanting to beat boys up, but eventually realised this could be a proper sport,” she provides.
With Puja needing extra freedom than karate might provide, her actual break got here via Wushu, a martial artwork that mixes grace and fight.
With her uncle’s assist, she discovered her method to SAI Bhopal. She spent 5 years there, sharpening her craft.
But when she was supplied a job as a constable after years of coaching, it felt like an insult.

“After everything, a constable’s job? I couldn’t accept that,” she says. “And my sister was in MBBS. She needed money. That’s when I heard about MMA.”
No contracts. No pay. No assure. She fought anyway. Eventually, in Delhi, somebody supplied her cash to fight. She mentioned sure — not for fame, however to pay tuition charges.
From there, the 31-year-old puncher has now reached some extent the place she will simply spend round Rs 1.5 to 2 lakhs a month on her MMA staff.
Off the mat, she sketches. Her wall is roofed in drawings and craftwork. “My hobbies are completely opposite of fighting,” she says, grinning. “But I love it. It keeps me grounded.”
She prays earlier than fights — not to win, however to discover readability. Her coaching is brutal: two periods a day, strict food plan, intense drills. “Sometimes, the training is so hard I can’t even sleep. But I know it’s what it takes.”
Her coach, Mike, helped her practice via an ankle damage that delayed her upcoming fight. Now, she’s set to face Ireland’s Shauna Bannon on March 22 at UFC Fight Night 254.

“I’m mentally ready,” she says. “This is going to be a big year. My goal is to reach the top. I know I can bring the belt home.”
Before her fight in Louisville, a Japanese interviewer requested her bluntly: “Do you really think Indian fighters can do anything outside cricket?”
It stung.
“I just smiled,” she says. “Because I wanted to show that India is not just cricket. We have fighters, too.”
On June 8, 2024, she did simply that. With a flurry of calculated strikes, relentless strain, and coronary heart, she edged out Santos in a historic determination. It wasn’t simply her win, it was India’s.
Back in her village, individuals wept in pleasure. Her mom now walks round proudly saying, “That’s my daughter.”
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“My mom is proud and always excited to talk to the media,” she provides.
Her sisters — one in scrubs, the opposite in a white coat — cheered louder than anybody.
Puja by no means obtained to show herself to her father — he handed away earlier than she might. But in each punch, in each takedown, in each minute of each spherical, she carries that fireplace.
“When I obtained older, my mother informed me that after I was born, my dad fainted. They had saved me apart to let me die as a result of they didn’t want another lady,” she confesses. “But after I cried, my mother pulled me out of that pot and determined to save me. I all the time carried that ache. I by no means imagined he (father) would cross away, however I all the time wished to show to him that the lady who made you faint, she’s able to a lot.”