Mixed Martial Arts Tells Unusual Tale of Romance Inside a Steel Cage

When you think of mixed martial arts (MMA), you think of the spirit of competition – the way combat sports athletes train days and nights on end to enhance their skills. Never once does it cross your mind that MMA would serve as a bridge for two athletes to fall in love.

ONE Championship lightweight contender Shannon “One Shin” Wiratchai, and female MMA fighter Rika “The Smiling Assassin” Ishige are two of the most highly-skilled martial artists in Thailand. They are trained to finish opponents in the swiftest of manners, utilizing various techniques to claim victory in the cage.

They are also in a relationship together.

“We actually met five years ago, at an aikido gym Rika had been going to. There was an event at the gym and she was the emcee. When I saw her, she was so beautiful. I knew I had to meet her,” said Wiratchai.

“I thought she saw me and that she tried to run away from me!” he laughed.

Ishige shyly replied: “I didn’t actually see him at the time. I was too focused on emceeing at the event.”

Like many men who meet the apple of their eye for the first time, Wiratchai found it difficult to muster enough courage to go up to Ishige to ask her out on a date. So he went around the gym asking people who she was and how he would be able to get a hold of her.

“I finally saw her on Facebook so I added her. At first, she unfriended me!” quipped Wiratchai.

The two had communicated on and off for a while, but their relationship didn’t blossom until a few years later.

“Somehow, we lost touch and didn’t connect for a moment. But then in two years’ time, we had another conversation on Facebook and then soon I met her again. She came up to me and asked me if I could train her for MMA.”

Ishige revealed that she had been involved in martial arts from an early age.

The 27-year-old MMA beauty is of Thai and Japanese heritage and comes from a family of martial artists. Her late father was a judo practitioner, and her older sister who is now a medical doctor trained in taekwondo.

For Wiratchai, it was as if fate had played in his favor.

Here she was, the girl of his dreams coming up to him and asking him to help make her into an MMA star. Wiratchai knew he couldn’t let this opportunity pass, so he took her under his wing.

From then on, the two hit it off instantly and they have been together ever since.

You would think that this sort of sappy love story has no place in MMA, but there are many fighter couples who have been able to find love in the sport. Wiratchai and Ishige are a perfect example, and it happened within just a few years of the sport’s rise in Asia.

Who knows how many stories like theirs have blossomed in Thailand, in the rest of the region.

Speaking to them both, you get the sense that they possess a unique synchronicity – the kind that only exists between two people who are genuinely affectionate towards each other.

“I tell him I hate him everyday! I don’t really understand what I like about him,” Ishige joked.

“I think it’s because I am good-looking!” Shannon responded.

“To be serious, I think it’s because we also share the same passion in MMA. The sport has really brought us together,” Ishige added.

Later this year, ONE Championship will return to Bangkok for ONE: WARRIOR KINGDOM. It is the promotion’s second live event in Thailand’s capital city, following a successful inaugural event which took place in May of 2016.

Wiratchai, a ONE Championship veteran since 2012, will make his seventh appearance inside the ONE cage. Ishige, Thailand’s first professional female MMA fighter, will make her promotional debut.

“Rika has great sense for fighting and is a very quick learner. She’s a natural,” said Wiratchai. “I am excited for her debut on the big stage.”

Wiratchai added that since ONE’s first outing in Bangkok last year, the martial arts landscape in the country has changed drastically.

“Because of the last ONE event, MMA has become so huge in Thailand. More and more people are now coming to train at the gym. I feel a lot has changed in the past one or two years,” said Wiratchai.

“It’s great because we always dream of seeing world-class events like this in Thailand. We see a lot of big fights on TV and on the internet, big events like in Las Vegas or in Macau. But now it’s going to become a reality in Thailand. That’s a great thing. We are ready to show the world what Thai MMA is all about.”

ONE: WARRIOR KINGDOM is set for 11 March at the Impact Arena in Bangkok. The massive fight card is headlined by Singapore’s MMA superstar, ONE Women’s Atomweight World Champion Angela “Unstoppable” Lee as she defends her title for the first time against Jenny Huang of Chinese Taipei.