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Glendale Fighting Club is right down the street from Effie Studios.  In January 2012, I went in there to ask about filming fighters.  They said if you really want to see something, come back Saturday for Ronda's workout. 

 

She was an Olympic medalist training to contend for the MMA Strikeforce championship.  I came back with a Red One and the idea of matching the improvisation of fighting with a circular breath saxophone solo, Colin Stetson's colossal "the righteous wrath of an honorable man."  She couldn't have been nicer about granting me access. 

 

The next month she KO'd Meisha Tate for the title.  She went on to become the first female UFC champion, throw hands in the Fast and the Furious franchise, and conquer the WWE, the first woman crowned as champion of both the UFC and WWE.  In 2015, an ESPN fan poll voted her the greatest female athlete of all time.

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