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[Bec] When the bell rings,
it's a very surreal feeling.
It feels like a lifetime,
but is probably only ten seconds.
It's like everything just dialed in.
It's like I'm in a fishbowl.
There's no crowd, there is no noise,
other than my opponent in front of me.
It's a moment of "anything can happen."
And that's probably part of why I like to fight,
push myself, my body and my mind
to a place that many won't go.
[announcer] Fighting out of Brisbane,
Queensland, Australia,
"Rowdy" Bec Rawlings!
I'm Bec Rawlings
and this-- [laughs]
[laughs]
I don't know what else to say.
I'm Bec Rawlings and this is Fight To Live.
I'm a professional fighter,
I'm a mother of two,
and an all over badass.
[laughs]
["Have A Seat" by Ursa 13 playing]
The first time I ever met Bec Rawlings
was at Alliance Training Center.
She wanted to bang,
and there was no backing down at all.
I just wanted to be around her and get to know her more.
[audience cheering]
[Jessica] And she had crazy hair,
and, you know, crazy tattoos.
My first memory of Bec,
my honest opinion was, "What bad tattoos."
[Jessica] She just really embodies
her nickname, which is "Rowdy."
I agreed to take on Bec
partly because I'm not real smart.
Um… [chuckles] All jokes aside…
She was a bit of a ratbag.
As a little kid, she was just feral,
getting into stuff, getting filthy and--
She wouldn't accept discipline,
she was in trouble at school.
[commentator] Our first ever AFC female fight.
Round of applause for Bec Rowdy.
[audience exclaiming]
[Bec] I looked really good
up until the point I got kicked in the head. [chuckles]
I went down to the canvas
and I think I was out for about a minute.
No one would ever outwork us.
If we lacked in skill,
we definitely didn't lack in heart, strength, speed, cardio.
We'd just grind and grind and grind
and work our asses into the ground.
And it always showed in our fights.
-[commentator] I think… Oh! -[all exclaiming]
[Malcolm] So, Bec's call up to Invicta was…
quite a surprise.
I'm the underdog and I like being the underdog.
It's fun, I love proving people wrong.
I don't know, I could pull a submission out
or I could knock her out.
I'll get my hand raised one way or another.
[Mary] When she went to do mixed martial arts,
that was bad enough.
And then,
when you think it can't get any worse,
she does the bare knuckle.
And I just thought, "Oh, my goodness."
[commentator] Fighters look intent on a ferocious start.
[commentator 2] Definitely an eye damage.
[Bec] This sport is made for me.
I love to box,
and I think the bare knuckle aspect,
it just fits me.
The fight before the fight is hard,
so anyone that steps into that ring
has already got my respect.
The first day was the day I fell pregnant with Enson.
He started by shoving me into a wall.
How could he do that
when I've got his son inside me.
There were stories from outsiders.
When I first saw her,
I assumed it was just done in training.
I guess that's how it was hidden for so long.
Because you're expected to have bruising,
you're expected to have marks.
Not knowing that it was going on,
made you question exactly what it was you were doing
and why couldn't you see it happening.
[Dominick] I really got to know the Bec Rawlings
and some of the things that she has been through.
Facing domestic violence,
and how she dealt with it,
and how she deals with it today.
-[all chuckling] -It's a video!
[Victoria] She is a beautiful person
inside and out,
and she has an incredibly
powerful story.
Her vulnerability gives people courage and permission
to really stand up for themselves.
I was raised by a mom and my grandmother,
so I can see the strength in women already,
and she reminds me so much of the strongest women I know,
my mom and my grandma, in so many ways.
She is a warrior,
and she has been a warrior
much longer than any of us have ever seen in the cage.
[audience cheering]
[Cat] She's seen it all and lived it all
and still has a smile on her face.
It's hardened her, but it's also softened her.
She's a hell of a fighter,
a hell of a person, a hell of a mother.
I love that girl, I love that girl.
[audience cheering]
[Bec] It's not a time to, you know,
I hate the saying of,
"What happens behind closed doors
stays behind closed doors."
That's such an outdated thing to say.
And I think, yeah,
it's time for people to actually speak up
and intervene,
and raise our kids
to not only not be okay
with treating people like that,
but also not tolerate it.
-Where's your drink bottles? -[Enson] Upstairs.
[Bec] Can you grab it, please, mate, and fill it up?
[coffee machine whirring]
They had breakfast and they're getting ready,
and I'm just making their lunches.
I will drop them off at school.
We're pretty normal, to be honest.
Like, I guess, we don't put a suit on and go to an office,
you know, we put our gym gear on and go
punch people in the face.
[laughs]
Zake just started high school.
He's the calm one of the two. [laughs]
Enson is kinda like the quirky little crazy one.
They're both into jiu-jitsu now.
Enson loves boxing as well.
He gets to burn a lot of energy doing that,
which is important
because he's got a lot of energy.
The message I give my kids
is if you see someone getting bullied,
you stick up for them.
Doesn't matter if they're your friend.
It doesn't matter if you don't know them,
you say something and you intervene.
And I feel like,
adults need to start doing that, too.
[Mary] It's funny when your children are born,
because they're all beautiful in their own way.
Bec was different
because she had the blonde hair and the blue eyes,
and the others didn't.
There's a classic photo of Rebecca riding a yellow trike
on our driveway,
and we'd set up like a jump
for my brother and I on our BMXs.
But Rebecca was probably two,
and decided she was going over the jump.
After that, mom and dad with the camera
taking photos just as she's hit it,
and then as she falls off it.
[chuckles]
Goes sideways and lands on her head.
[Mary] She was a cheeky little thing.
She liked to be boyish,
and, you know, wouldn't have her hair done,
and wore funny clothes,
and you just sort of looked at her and thought,
"Mm… she's gonna be trouble."
As a kid, I think growing up,
you know, I was a really angry kid.
It was like me against the world.
And I look back on it
and I was like, I self-sabotaged myself a lot.
Like, I made it a lot harder than what it should have been.
I never felt like I fit in anywhere.
I didn't feel like I belonged.
I didn't find, you know, my space,
my place, my thing.
I definitely didn't belong in school.
I definitely didn't do well to taking orders.
And I feel like that's where I got myself in a lot of trouble.
[Jacqui] As a teenager, she was a handful.
As a teenager she was rebellious and stubborn.
She just sort of started to make…
a different friendship group,
which probably wasn't a good friendship group.
I feel like when I describe myself as a youth,
it'll be like a hooligan.
[laughs]
When I was working as a police officer
and she was getting arrested,
she wasn't much fun for either of us.
If you could imagine,
you know, a 13, 14-year-old me
with two middle fingers up in the air saying,
"Fuck you" to everyone and everything,
that was it.
"I don't like you,
but I still love you."
And that's definitely Rebecca.
You could quite easily have given her away
between the age of 14 and 18.
[chuckling] There was a description read out
for an assault or a fight,
and the description was her, dead set her.
And I was probably the only one in the room that realized that,
and had to say, "I know who that is."
I'm pretty sure I was 15, 16,
got into a fight with a girl and I hit her.
Yeah, I have a really bad temper.
I lost my shit.
I didn't really sink in what I've done
until the cops came knocking on my door
and brought me in for questioning.
And my parents were there,
and they're like, "What did you do?"
No, I wouldn't have pictured
the feral toddler that used to follow us around
would turn into the teenager
that was getting booted out of school
and running away from home,
and then escalating to
getting arrested and that sort of thing.
But I don't really know how…
things happened like that, not sure.
Bec probably wouldn't remember
mum and dad living together.
and us as a family like that, I wouldn't imagine.
'Cause she was quite young when they separated.
It's hard to parent from a distance,
and probably the discipline
that she would have had from her father…
wasn't there as much as what it would have been
if we'd still been together.
Back then I was just an angry kid
and I just took it out on anyone I could
and lost my shit.
[sirens blaring]
[Bec] And I kind of spiraled out of control from there.
You know, I had a few more instances
where I got in trouble at school for fighting,
and got kicked out of school for fighting.
And just kind of went down that path
with hanging out the wrong kids
and doing the wrong things.
Just being a little hood rat,
I guess, you know, just causing trouble.
Just doing shit that you shouldn't be doing
as a 16-year-old kid.
It was another fuck you to my family,
to my sister, especially,
who was a police officer at the time.
And that was just my way, I guess, of rebelling
and entertaining myself.
If she either kept going in the line she was going,
she would have ended up in jail.
It was a mother's worst nightmare.
I didn't love myself and I didn't feel loved.
And I think that was probably the biggest issue.
Deep down inside it was, I didn't truly love myself.
[thunder rumbling]
She lost a baby at 20 weeks.
It was quite advanced,
and they had to surgically…
yeah, remove the baby.
And the staff weren't particularly nice to her.
She had tattoos, yeah.
People in Launceston didn't have tattoos much
and they weren't nice to her.
I actually made a formal complaint
and we got a written apology,
but I think she just wanted to have a baby.
She wanted to have somebody
that she could love and protect,
and that was just part of her.
She wanted to be a mother.
[kids screaming]
[Bec] I think my turning point was
when I fell pregnant with my eldest son, Zake.
I was 19 when I gave birth to him.
I had a few missed pregnancies before that.
So, that was pretty rough.
And so, I felt like Zake was like my miracle.
You know, I had this little human that relied on me.
So, I had to change my way
and be a better person and a better human
and a role model for my son.
I didn't want him to go down the same path as me.
That's when she started kick-boxing.
So, I guess, sport sort of brought her back
on the straight and narrow again.
Gave her a bit of confidence
and showed he there was more to life than what was occurring.
[upbeat music]
[Bec] I signed up to a cardio kick-boxing gym.
And as I was training there with my friend,
I saw these people training MMA,
and I fell in love instantly.
It was definitely an outlet for me.
It was a place to stay on track.
It was a place to get fitter,
physically and mentally.
At that time, I was just another body on the mat.
I was just there, I showed up,
and I was nothing special.
I didn't stand out, you know, from the bunch.
I was just in there to train and have fun,
and get stuck in.
And that's where I met Dan Hyatt.
He was initially, just my training partner.
We were both training under the same coach.
He was a professional fighter at the time,
and I was just finding the sport.
My coach went interstate for a trip,
so Dan took over the coaching role,
and that's where we became closer
and I began a relationship.
It was fresh, exciting.
He was very caring and loving.
I guess, he kind of had that bad boy vibe about him
that I thought was like, a fighter thing.
You know, I thought that's what fighters were like,
you know, big and tough and…
that tough exterior.
But I've never met a fighter before,
so I didn't know what to expect, I guess.
The biggest thing you can take from fighting
is there's no honor fighting on the street.
Fighting in a controlled environment, in the gym,
and then, eventually, competing on the world stage
was my outlet.
MMA fighting, when I first saw it,
I just thought, "Oh, why would Bec want to do that?"
I had no idea you could even fight
at that point, professionally,
and get paid and actually make a sport of it.
And as I got better at it,
my coach came to me
and asked if I'd like to have a fight.
And I said, "Well, if you think I'm ready to fight,
and I can do this, then I'm gonna do it."
When she wanted to actually compete,
I just thought, "My goodness,
you're such a beautiful girl."
"Why would you want to get your face punched in?"
A lot of people think fighting is just this barbaric sport,
but it actually teaches you discipline.
It teaches you respect and humility,
and that's what I really needed at that point in time.
And it definitely changed my life.
[reporter] What I'm about to show you
is pretty damn exciting.
It's Bec "Rowdy" Hyatt, five foot five,
her MMA debut in the pink.
And Rhiannon "The Tornado" Thompson,
one and O, she is five foot seven.
Going into this fight, again, one and O.
Her second fight, here's the video.
[Bec] You're going into this fight,
you're not knowing what you're walking into.
It was chaos.
[audience cheering]
[screams]
I went out there and I fought as hard as I could,
and I enjoyed the fight.
I looked really good,
up until the point I got kicked in the head. [chuckles]
So, but that's MMA, you know, these things can happen.
I made one little error and she capitalized on that.
And I went down to the canvas
and I think it was out for about a minute.
That's career ending
for someone on their debut.
You know, that's a big shock to your system
to get kicked in the face and knocked unconscious.
So… but it never crossed my mind.
I never thought, "I'm gonna quit,
that was horrible."
I was just, "Let's get back in the gym,
let's make sure it never happens again."
It was after a few months with Dan
that things started getting weird.
It was everything being fine,
and then all of a sudden
him not talking to me,
just full ghosting me.
And then, he would appear back on the scene
with no explanation.
And that cycle just kept going.
And it made me start questioning, "What did I do?
Did I say something?"
And I started questioning myself
and my actions and my words.
And it kept me, you know, trying to…
I guess, fight for his acceptance and love.
And now looking back at it,
I see what he was doing.
He was making me vulnerable,
he was making me…
question myself and my sanity and…
and look at myself like I was the problem.
Dan started to take control bit by bit.
The way he perceived it was
that he was trying to help with my career.
He was trying to help with my training
and my nutrition
to become more recognized on social media
and to build my career.
And the way he would word it
and twist the whole situation was he was trying to help me.
He was doing it out of the kindness of his heart.
[Mary] The fact that I didn't really like him
didn't mean that they weren't happy at that point in time.
He was certainly pushing her career,
and she wanted it to be pushed.
So, yeah, every thing looked hunky-dory.
[Bec] He intervened with all my friendships.
He said I had to choose between him and my friends.
It was really hard to give in to that demand.
He would say something about Zake and Zake's father,
and I would get upset.
Then, he would spin it around,
like I caused that because I got upset.
And that I'm making him hurt me.
The relationship became physical
the day I found out I was pregnant with Enson.
He started by shoving me into a wall.
How could he do that
when I've got his son inside me?
Every time it would get to the physical point,
he would say, "Why do you make me do this?"
"Why are you making me do this?"
He'd say it over and over
until I believed that, you know, I was causing these issues
because I was fighting back.
[somber music]
He was always very, very sweet
after the fight would would end.
After, you know, the physical stuff would end,
he was always very apologetic.
He was always very emotional.
He would plead with me,
he would even cry that he was sorry,
and that I make him do these things,
and he wish I wouldn't make him do it.
Seven, eight months,
a little bit longer before we got married.
And I honestly got married
because I thought it was going to fix all of our problems.
Everything in my head
was this was gonna make it better.
This was gonna… he was gonna stop abusing me.
He was gonna finally love me
because I'm making this commitment to him
and proving to him how much I loved him.
At the time of the wedding,
none of us had any idea what Dan was really like.
He was strange.
I suppose a wedding is always all about the bride,
so didn't really know much…
Had much to do with him, really.
He was just quiet.
[Mary] He was a bit of an odd ball.
He didn't really talk to us much,
but we just accepted him for what he was,
as you do.
Bec loved him,
that was important to us.
To all accounts, they looked like a loving couple.
And then, not long after the wedding,
I moved to Queensland.
[melancholic music playing]
[Bec] I felt like it was going to fix us.
I thought it was gonna be that magic pill
that our relationship needed.
And part of that appeal was,
you know, getting married to him
and moving to Brisbane…
To train at a better gym,
to further his career,
to get away from the Tassie life,
to get away from Zake's father
and all my friends down there
that were his reminder of…
what I was
and that's why he couldn't love me
or give me…
treat me the way that he thinks I should have been treated
or he couldn't treat me the way I should have been treated
because I was a bad person.
I was a bad person when I was in Tasmania.
So, moving to Brisbane
and getting married to him and all these steps
were my way of trying to fix it.
Trying to prove to him
that I was worthy of his love.
I don't feel that I was a bad person.
I just don't think I loved myself enough
to want better.
I felt like I deserved it
or I was doing something
to deserve the way he was treating me.
And I didn't love myself
to want better for myself.
At the point where social media
became a big part of my career,
I had no control over it.
I didn't even have access to it.
That was Dan pretending to be me online.
Everything was just fake.
It portrayed that we were this happy family
and I was this happy, bubbly mom with two kids,
and we were gonna live happily ever after.
Well, it couldn't have been further from the truth.
Seeing them both together at the gym
four to five times a week,
Bec and Dan together were like a lot of couples.
A little bit volatile, sometimes,
a little bit friendly,
joking, playing with each other,
sometimes distant.
Sometimes I'd be training one
and the other one would barely make eye contact with the other.
None of that stood out as something…
unusual at the time.
It was just a young couple.
It slowly got worse, you know?
He would get to go a bit longer.
It wasn't just a shove here and there,
you know he'd hold me down
or he would kick me.
Or… I remember sitting on the computer one day,
and he just came up behind me.
We hadn't even had an argument.
He just came up behind me and choked me unconscious.
And I woke up with my head in the keyboard.
[foreboding music]
And then, he would find different ways to hurt me.
He would, you know, trash my house
and destroy my things
or destroy Zake's things.
Yeah, it just slowly got worse.
I guess, he got more confident
with me not talking, not telling anyone.
At that point, I was in survival mode.
I was in protection mode
of my two baby cubs.
And they were…
The only thing on my mind was to protect them
and keep them safe,
and to keep them out of harm's way.
He did the typical domestic violence sort of thing
where he alienated the family,
he moved her away from us
as far as he could.
But he came up against the Rawlings family
and we all stick together.
So, we spent a lot of time in Queensland.
We thought that there was
some, you know, hitting
and so forth going on,
but we couldn't… we never witnessed it.
We saw the bruises, but Bec just said,
"Oh, that's from training."
[Malcolm] There were stories from outsiders
who would would speak to me quietly and privately
and say, "Look, I've heard some things
that maybe Dan, you know, has been abusive to Bec
or is very controlling."
But when we would question her on that,
there was always a bubbly response
that we should all not worry about it,
that we should all not be concerned,
that she was okay.
He controlled my fight career.
He controlled everything around me,
and I felt like I couldn't get out.
He threatened to slander my name.
He threatened to release nude photos.
He threatened to basically destroy my credibility.
And I was scared.
I didn't know what I was going to do if that happened.
There's a lot of horrible feelings,
there's feelings of, you know, scared for my life,
there's feelings of helplessness,
being pinned down and not being able to move.
It's not a nice feeling.
Not being able to breathe is not a nice feeling.
The feeling, I think, is like sheer terror.
It's trying to fight back and not being able to.
Especially, I was training at the time,
so I knew what I had to do, but I couldn't.
He was bigger, he was better.
And it got to the point where I would fight back
as much as I could,
and then I'd just give up
and wait for him to stop.
And I think that's what hurt the most,
was I just gave up
and just hoped that he didn't kill me.
[director] Bec, can you…
What were the kinds of things that he did to you?
He kicked and punched me.
He choked me unconscious.
He held me down by my throat
and drove his elbow into my face.
He would spit on me.
He would pour milk on me.
Pour anything he could get his hands on on top of me.
He would smother me with pillows.
[sniffles] He'd hold me down for hours,
not being able to get up.
He would tear my house apart
and slash my couches,
smash my TVs.
Cut up all my clothes, pour bleach on them,
so I had no clothes to wear.
[exhales]
I think the hardest was when he would just be sadistic.
He just hold me down and spit on me
or pour things on me or smother me.
That was I think the worst.
[somber music]
A lot of our arguments began
with me defending my son.
He was never physical towards Zake,
but he was very emotionally abusive towards him.
He didn't treat him very nicely at all.
I remember the incident, actually.
It was an argument over
the computer or the Xbox,
something along those lines.
And he threw a mobile phone at my face.
And Enson was upstairs, asleep in the cot,
and Zake was downstairs, playing.
And I just picked up Zake and I just wanted to leave,
and I went to get Enson
and he just blocked, he barricaded the stairs,
so I couldn't get to Enson.
So, I picked up Zake and I just left.
And I went to the gym,
we walked all the way to the gym,
which is about five kilometers.
And I told my coach
and he called the police straight away.
So, you've got to imagine,
you've got a room full of killers here, yeah?
You've got a room full of fighters
that can do pretty much whatever they like to other people
in a situation.
And I saw a lot of tough guys cry that day.
Saw a lot of guys that were angry
they couldn't do something.
A couple of the fighters wanted to take it upon themselves
to fix the situation.
[sighs]
It was a tough day, it was tough day.
Only if I had done what I should have done
when I first had suspicions
or you know, may have thought something was happening,
I should have spoken up, you know…
It's just that stigma around it all.
To this day still, people think it's not their business
or you know, it's not their place or whatever.
No, it's… I was guilty of thinking that way back then.
[Bec] I knew Dan would never hurt Enson.
Enson was his pride and joy,
he was his son.
So, I knew he was safe.
I knew he would never hurt him at that point.
The next day, while it was the night…
In the night, it was early morning,
my friend drove me there and I snuck up
and I took him.
I got hundreds and hundreds of texts.
They range from a range of emotions.
They were like, "I'm sorry,"
and apologizing to "I love you," to,
"Fuck you, you're a piece of shit."
And back to wanting to see Enson.
Apologizing for treating me the way he did,
apologizing for hurting me.
Revenge, yeah. Make him pay.
I think that was the big thing in the gym.
It was little pockets of people planning things
to get back at someone.
Obviously, some of us, little bit older
and trying to be a little bit wiser.
[Adrian] The feeling inside is both, you know,
sadness for it happening to her,
and just complete anger
and wanting to go take it down on the person that did it.
[Mary] In hindsight, if we'd known,
I would have done everything in my power
to get her away from him.
He used to tell me that
I was damaged goods,
and that no one would ever want me,
and I had two kids to two different dads.
And so, I should be thankful that he wanted to be with me.
[Jacqui] I found out they were in Queensland.
I end up speaking to the police in Queensland
that attended the most serious incident,
which ended up getting their equivalent
of child protective services involved,
which I think helped Bec sort of…
make the break
and fly with kids and get away from him.
She had some really good friends out there at the time
from the gym that helped her.
Helped her with the boys
and got her away from him.
[Adrian] I brought them in after all that happened,
I didn't see any other option.
They needed help, they needed a place to go.
I called my parents.
Of course, they said, "Yes" straight away
without skipping a beat,
and just brought them in.
It was the humane thing to do
and the right thing to do.
My relationship with Adrian is unique.
We originally were friends,
training partners.
His family took us in
when we had nowhere to stay,
so I was able to live close to the gym and train.
For people to take in, you know,
me and my two kids…
and do that,
you know, you don't come across those kind of people.
And it shows what kind of people they are.
That friendship formed into a relationship
years after that.
He's good for me and…
I'm very lucky to have him in my life,
him and his family.
[all chuckling]
Hey, don't bite her legs. [laughs]
[all laughing]
[Bec] They've never come to a fight live,
they've always watched it on TV.
Kind of didn't like 'em coming.
When they were a bit younger,
I don't think it's something that you need to see.
You know, your mum and dad getting punched in the face
isn't probably the nicest thing.
But now, they're a bit older
and they can comprehend it a bit more.
[announcer] From team Rodriguez, it's Adrian Rodriguez!
[Bec] Come on, come on!
Go again!
Get him right. Right, yes!
Beautiful!
So, Adrian even said he heard Enson cheering for him
and it really, like, it uplifted him
and he was like, "I'm not gonna lose in front of my boys."
[Enson] Yeah, it was a nice fight.
I got a bit worried that he was gonna lose
'cause he was getting hit a bit.
[Bec chuckling] It happens.
-It is a fist fight. -[all laugh]
Yeah, they came in the ring, got photos.
Actually, we have to find those photos.
We have to find photos
of you guys in the ring with Adrian.
[Adrian] That was a cool photo.
It had the whole team and whole family there.
[Bec] Yeah.
Being a father figure for both Zake and Enson…
it's rewarding,
it's scary at the same time.
Obviously, you wanna make sure
that you give 'em the right role model.
Obviously, as a stepfather,
there's things to overcome,
but I've been in their lives for so long,
you know, they do see me as dad.
And so, that makes it a lot easier
and they're two beautiful kids, so it's very, very rewarding.
[crowd cheering]
-[commentator] Kicked in… Oh! -[all exclaiming]
[commentator] The fists are like…
[commentator 2] That's where it's at.
I fought on the local scene in Australia.
I had five, I think five professional fights here
and ran out of opponents.
There weren't many girls fighting back then.
That was when Ronda Rousey came on the scene.
And she convinced Dana White to let women into the UFC.
I remember watching her first fight on the UFC
and it was like, I got goosebumps.
You know, I never thought I'd see women fight
in the UFC.
So, yeah, that was a really big…
really big milestone, that one.
Bec's call up to Invicta was quite a surprise.
We were ecstatic, obviously,
to get the call up, the opportunity.
And when I got the call to say,
"Should I take the title fight against Carla?"
"Absolutely," I said, "We should."
I thought that we might be able to overwhelm her.
I'm the underdog and I like being the underdog.
It's fun. I like proving people wrong.
I think going against an opponent
that has nothing to lose
can sometimes be the most dangerous.
[crowd cheering]
One day I got a phone call.
And I was like, "This voice sounds familiar."
And it was Dana White.
He's like, "What's up, Bec?"
I was like, "Hi, what's going on?"
And then he said, "We've decided to bring in
the straw-weight division in the UFC
and we've decided to select you
along with, I think it was 15, 16 other women
to go on the Ultimate Fighter."
It was a huge shock.
At that point that was the pinnacle for women.
It was like a whole bunch of feelings.
Obviously, nervous.
I didn't know what I was getting myself into.
I signed up for a reality TV show
where I was away from my kids for seven weeks,
locked up in a house with all these girls
that I'm getting lined up to fight against.
So, it was a bit daunting,
but it was exciting.
I was actually visiting my mom in Tasmania
when I got the phone call.
I still remember it to this day.
I was at her old house
and I got a phone call,
and I walked outside into the driveway.
And after I got off the phone,
I walk back here with the biggest smile on my face.
My mom's like, "Who was that?"
[chuckling] And I'm like, "That was Dana White
and I'm fucking, I'm fighting for the UFC."
You know, it just blew me away.
She always had aspirations
that she was going to be the best.
And I just thought, "No, I don't know about that."
But then I didn't know a lot about the sport either.
When she got accepted
into the Tough House for the UFC,
I thought, "Oh, that's pretty good." [chuckles]
And yes, she did very well.
I mean, her first fight in America was for a belt.
[Bec] My first fight on the actual UFC Fight Night,
it was pretty hectic to be honest.
It was a really hard, hard fight.
I thought I won the decision,
but I lost.
Um, the girl I fought,
I didn't like at all at the time,
so there was a lot of bad blood
and it felt really good to punch her in the face.
[laughs]
I'm sure she felt the same way.
But we hugged it out at the end.
I think that's the good thing about fighting,
is, you know, we go in there
and we could go into this fight with bad blood.
But we're both in there trying to do the same thing,
so you gain that respect for each other.
But it was a good fight.
My first win in the UFC
was a UFC Fight Night in Adelaide.
It was really cool to be on Aussie soil
and get my first UFC win.
It was very emotional.
I left my kids for eight weeks.
I really put my heart and soul into this fight camp
and to come out with the win really topped it off.
It was a roller coaster in the UFC,
and I won some and I lost some.
The highs were really high and the lows are really low.
It's one thing to lose,
it's another thing to lose on the world stage.
And then, going on social media
and getting reminded every day that you lost.
It's also amazing to win on that TV as well.
And it's the nature of the beast.
Sometimes you lose and sometimes you win.
I feel like that is the sport,
and it's how you come back from it.
And I've definitely grown as a fighter and a person
dealing with losses and dealing with wins.
When I first started competing in MMA,
I was fighting in the straw-weight division,
which was 52 kilos.
And I think that weight division really suited me at that time.
I was still a young woman,
I was 22-years-old.
So I was making that weight quite easily.
But as I got older, I got more mature.
I started putting on more muscle
and things got harder to drop.
And add on to that,
I got a thyroid disease,
so that kind of just threw another spanner in the works.
And those are few things, you know,
that came to mind
when I realized I lost the love for the sport.
Or not the love for it,
the vision of why I was doing it.
It was getting to the point
where I was cutting like eight kilos in water to fight.
I was passing out cutting weight,
and then the next day I was meant to fight
to my 100 percent performance.
And it just… this spiraled out of control.
And so, a sport like MMA
isn't a sport that you wanna lose your direction in,
or lose your love in,
because you're getting punched in the face,
you're gonna get hurt out there.
[Mary] When she went to do mixed martial arts,
that was bad enough.
And then, when you think it can't get any worse,
she does the bare knuckle.
And I just thought, "Oh, my goodness."
[Bec] It was all new to me and I started…
I went down that rabbit hole of what is bare knuckle.
Like, I knew boxing originated without gloves,
but I didn't know the extent,
I didn't know the history behind it.
And it was now legalized again.
So, that was cool and exciting to kind of, you know,
get that in and nerd out,
and start researching and looking into it.
I felt like the sport was made for me,
so I was excited.
Still excited about this new chapter
I was about to go down.
I love bare knuckle,
I really enjoy it, I think it's a great sport.
[Bec] It's bare knuckle,
so my knuckles have to be bare.
So, basically, we wrap the wrist and the thumb,
secure those in,
and leave the knuckles bare.
There's no wraps, there's no tape,
there's no gauze over your actual knuckles.
So you can see the knuckles coming for you.
I was actually really excited.
[commentator] It is our co-main event of the night.
Women's featherweight.
Bec Rawlings versus Alma Garcia.
[Bec] It was a new sport.
It was…
All I had to worry about was two hands. [chuckles]
And coming from MMA,
you got so many aspects to worry about.
I was honestly so calm.
I was like, at peace
with what was gonna happen,
and I was just so confident in my skill set.
Ladies, to the line!
[Bec] It's a cool feeling.
I feel like that's how it should be.
I feel like that's how you should be fighting,
you should be at peace and relaxed
and calm and confident.
[commentator] Stepping into the pocket and trading.
Big shots now!
Garcia trying to fire back.
More straight punches from Bec Rawlings.
Uppercut.
[Bec] It was a good fight.
I dropped her.
[audience cheering]
I rearranged her face. [laughs]
[commentator] I'll tell you, there's a lot of swelling
under the left eye of Alma Garcia.
[commentator 2] Yeah, she's looking really bad right now.
[Bec] She was tough, but yes,
I out-skilled her in every aspect.
[announcer] By TKO doctor's stoppage,
"Rowdy" Bec Rawlings!
[Bec] My first bare knuckle fight,
we really just stuck to the fundamentals.
And then, for the Britain Heart fight,
we added in a few more skill sets.
[commentator] Both fighters look intent on a ferocious start.
[Bec] We worked on a lot of specifics for Britain Heart,
and we knew she was going to be open
and I had to keep my cool.
When I don't have a clear head out there,
I never fight to my potential,
so it was bringing that mental…
that mental control and keeping my cool in there.
Britain Heart was tough.
You know, I think every girl I fought is tough.
The fight before the fight is hard,
so anyone that steps into that ring
has already got my respect.
[audience cheering]
I think any girl that goes out there,
and trains their asses off,
and makes it to that Fight Night,
and puts puts their body on the line
in front of the world…
[chuckles] …is tough.
You've got to give them respect.
[crowd cheering]
[announcer] The winner by split decision…
-and still… -[audience cheering]
[indistinct]
Bare Knuckle Women's Featherweight champion,
"Rowdy" Bec Rawlings!
[Bec] This is an awesome feeling.
Britain put on a great fight.
You win this fight by being aggressive, not by running,
so it is what it is.
But still the queen of Bare Knuckle.
And thank you, Britain, for an amazing fight.
[upbeat music]
We're a few weeks out for flying off to Mexico
to defend my belt.
And I'm the current world champion,
so there's a lot resting on it.
Sometimes, as a trainer and a fighter,
you just hit it off.
And Bec's actually very similar to me
and her sense of humor is very similar
in the way we are as people.
So, when we started to work together,
it was an easy mix.
Just gonna wrap my hands and then start to warm up.
And I'm gonna just do that.
[laughs]
This is what we've created,
our fake skipping over here.
[laughs]
We just imagine there's a rope in our hands. [laughs]
Yes, so, we do that, what April's doing there.
And then, I shadow-box.
And… Um…
Normally, I'd hit a few rounds on the bag,
but I think I'm just gonna do pads with my coach, John,
after he moves around with April.
And then, I'll be doing some hand drills.
Just working on building strength and power right now.
I'm sitting down my punches,
and then you up the ante closer to the fight,
and that's when you break your body down a little bit.
It's like playing a game with your body,
how far you can push it,
and then rest it and then push it again.
Try and get that right balance
of not breaking your body down too much
and getting it to its peak performance.
[Malcolm] What you noticed about Bec
compared to some other fighters was that
when it got really tough,
there seemed to be a need to fight back,
a reason to continue
when it was uncomfortable.
And that makes a fighter stand out.
Everyone always says you learn more from a loss
than you do a win,
and it sounds so cliche, but you do.
I've gone out there and won in the first round
and I really took nothing from that.
But it's the losses that you learn from
and you grow from,
and that's in all facets of life,
not just in sport.
It's when you get knocked down,
it's how you get up and how you deal with it.
[upbeat music]
When I'm fighting,
I guess, it's very strategic.
It's definitely a lot you rely on with your muscle memory,
what you're doing in the gym every day.
Especially, when you get tired,
you go back to what you know.
I don't go out into a fight with, you know,
the mindset of,
"Oh, I can take damage, it's fine."
I definitely changed my fighting style
since when I first started fighting,
where I did take a lot of damage
and I could feel it.
You know, I could feel myself getting dumber.
[laughs]
So, yeah, I had to re-evaluate how I trained
and how I want to be around with my smarts and my wits
for my kids.
So now, I do train a lot
how not to take damage,
keep my hands up, move my head,
things like that.
It is really hard juggling kids
and the fight life,
but fortunately, you know,
I've only known this fight business since I've had them.
I didn't have the…
the opportunity to fight before I had the kids.
So, this is all I've known.
I have a schedule.
We have it down pat, kids know what's up.
They love… like they're gym babies.
[engine starts]
I normally come along.
And now that they're into jiu jitsu and boxing,
they train while I'm training.
-[Enson] Now, stretch first. -Yeah.
Hit the bag.
Then, maybe do some jiu jitsu with Zake.
-Nice one. -[Adrian] Right.
[Bec] You lost your pad!
[all laughing]
Fight that grip.
Get his hands and pull it down,
like a lever.
That's it.
Try and bring that first jab back to your face.
You know, jab, back, jab again.
So, you don't…
Yes, that's it.
The first name I got tattooed on me was Zake's.
And I knew never knew at that point
that I was gonna have, you know, another son on the other side.
And I'd have all this wrapping around my neck,
but yeah, I got Zake a few months after I had him.
And then, same was Enson.
And then, it was only a few years later
that I decided to get the heart
which I think, you know, represents for me,
it's the heart with the key and…
like they are my heart.
They're my everything and they hold the key to that.
That's what it means to me.
We're off to Mexico.
It's gonna be a big week.
I still have to prove that I'm the Bare Knuckle queen.
It's really cool to be in Mexico.
I feel like you get a lot more support here.
Everyone loves the sport.
And I think the Bare Knuckle aspect of it all
kind of gets a lot of people's respect.
[David] She's unbelievable.
She's just, she's everything I really want in a fighter,
but I liked her because she loves to promote,
and some of that… her voice
that really gets people to look at her
and to be attracted to her, I think.
More so than just the fighting.
And she is a pretty girl,
but take all that out of the equation,
she can fight like a man.
[Bec] My opponent is really tough.
Cecilia Flores.
She's a Mexican local girl
from Guadalajara, I think that's how you say it.
I think it's gonna be a really good fight, a fun fight.
And I think that's why they kind of match this…
match this fight because they know
Cecilia is gonna come out and try
and bring the fight to me,
and I'm gonna do the same to her.
So, expectations… Obviously, I think I'm gonna win.
I'm not gonna go into a fight thinking I'm gonna lose.
But I know it's going to be a tough fight.
I know she's not going to be an easy, you know,
someone that I'm just gonna put away in the first round.
It's gonna be tough,
but that's the fights I like anyway.
Aw, little cuties!
[Bec] It's been two days getting over jet lag.
Um… when I first got here,
it didn't feel like it was fight week,
but today I woke up and it feels like fight week.
I'm motivated.
And getting ready to fight.
You know, I've switched over to fight mode today.
So, yes, I was kinda like, lounging around,
and today, it's time for business.
[exhilarating music]
-Hi, John. -[chuckle softly]
[Bec] So, I fell down the stairs.
It was really wet, it was like raining really bad,
and I had my flip flops on,
and we were going to the gym and I just missed a step,
and like, legit bounced down two steps
and rolled my ankle.
So, it's like, really bruised and swollen in here.
This all… it's just a sprain.
It's like, nothing major.
It looks worse than what it is.
Oh, she was lucky. [chuckles]
Could have been a lot worse.
But we looked after it straight away.
So, lots of ice worth.
Got the blood to the surface,
so it's going really well.
It'll be all right by the end of the week.
It's just quite annoying having to…
Like normally, fight week, it's like you're feeling fresh
and ready to train and you just want to get in there,
and then this one, like, when you injure yourself
it's like, fucking something,
that you have to work your way back.
It's just annoying.
Ow, mother… He just needs an excuse to hit me.
[announcer] All right!
Buenas tardes, ladies and gentlemen.
Good afternoon and welcome
to the magnificent…
Oh, my goodness, it is so beautiful here
at the Grand Oasis Hotel
here in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico!
Making her way to the scale,
she holds a combined combat sports record
of 14 professional fights.
-[crowd cheering] -[announcer] Cecilia…
Ulloa Flores!
[crowd cheering]
[announcer] And next up, ladies and gentlemen,
this individual needs no introduction
in the Bare Knuckle world.
She holds a professional
Bare Knuckles record, undefeated at two and O,
fighting out of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia,
she is the defending
Women's Police Gazette Diamond featherweight
Bare Knuckle champion of the world.
Here is "Rowdy" Bec Rawlings!
[all applauding]
[Bec] Yeah, fighting Cecilia,
not really knowing much about her,
it's kinda annoying, obviously, not being able to study her,
but I don't really care, like,
even if I was to study her fights,
it's not gonna change what I'm going to do.
The unknown, I guess,
it makes it a little bit harder
to get 100 percent prepared for a certain style,
but insane that you think you've got someone in their style
and they change the game plan up anyway.
So, I prefer just going in there
with what I want to do,
and not really focus on what they're gonna do.
Yeah, the way Bec's feeling is really good.
We made weight well.
We've had a good day with weight-in well.
We're hydrated, we've got a meal then served.
It's good. Mentally, she's great.
Just a matter of now getting some rest.
And she'll be ready to go tomorrow.
She'll feel a million bucks by tomorrow and ready to go.
[all applauding]
I thought I was getting out of it,
and I was like, "Phew."
'Cause I suck at talking.
I do my talking with my fist. [chuckles]
I think people get the wrong idea of what love is.
You get confused, the line gets blurred.
And you're mistaking love for something else.
And it's confusing.
He convinced me that
he was going to get on his medication.
That he was gonna change,
he was gonna do right by us.
And he was gonna try.
And he said…
"We were married."
"I can't just give up on our marriage like that."
And that he was struggling mentally,
and that he was gonna get help
and see someone and get on medication.
And that I needed to come back and support him.
And… I eventually went back to him.
He showed signs of wanting to change.
And I think it was all just a game to him.
It didn't take long for him to go back to…
to the games.
He just found different ways to do it.
Instead of physically hitting me,
he would just destroy the house,
destroy my things.
Find other ways to get to me, I guess.
And so, I basically kept up the facade
that it had stopped…
out of embarrassment.
I didn't want them to know that I went back
and I let it continue.
- You have to get up. -[Adrian] Stop talking.
-Get up. -No.
-No! -[giggling]
-You have to get up. Come on. -[grunts]
I'm hungry!
And here we are, fight day.
Chilly and I try not to think about the fight.
this far from the fight.
You know, it's, "I've got all day."
So, you keep thinking about fighting and…
you're wasting too much mental energy.
So, I'm very chill, relaxed.
I'm just gonna chill out at my hotel
and probably have a nap later.
Get a good lunch and…
and then, I'll switch on to fight mode.
You know, when we get in that shuttle bus to go to the venue,
that's when I switch on.
[man] I can't wait for this five minutes.
I can not.
I don't have words to describe how excited I am.
Open field.
[exhilarating music]
Hey, it's on, man.
Outdoor and nothing better than Mother Nature.
You know what I'm saying?
It's the real jungle right here, baby.
[Bec] I feel like if I go into the fight calm and relaxed
and with a clean mind,
I'm always gonna fight my best.
When I fight with emotion,
I'm not so good,
I get a little wild and reckless.
So that's probably the one thing I'm going to be telling myself
when I go out there,
is just to keep calm
and go in there with a clear mind
and just do what I know I can do.
[Adrian] On the fight day,
I don't really give Bec too much advice.
I kind of just, you know, go over things that,
you know, that she's gone over in her camp
and just to reiterate things that she already knows,
just make sure they're fresh in her head
and just help her wherever she needs.
I'm not too much of an advice guy.
[Bec] I have trust in my training
and in my skill set,
and if it comes down to it, I've always got that heart.
That heart has gotten me through a lot of shit in my life,
so I know that's gonna get me through this fight
and more to come.
You're Latino, like, come on.
[announcer speaking Spanish]
[tense music]
[announcer speaking Spanish]
[announcer] By the red corner,
she wears the proud colours of Mexico!
Come on, come on, come on!
Let's go, let's go!
The final straw for me was…
[crowd cheering]
[Bec] …I was scared for the kids' lives.
He pulled a knife out of the drawer
in the kitchen
and held it up,
and said he was gonna kill me,
the kids, and then kill himself.
[crowd cheering]
[Bec] I had to get these kids out.
They were now at risk.
I waited for Dan to go to sleep.
I woke up really early.
And I just got a few things for the kids
and packed them into the car.
And I just left.
It was terrifying.
I didn't know what he would do
if he woke up finding me trying to leave with them.
But, you know, once I reversed out of the driveway
and I knew he wasn't gonna catch me,
it was a relief.
But I didn't know if I was gonna stay away.
And as soon as I got to my mum's,
and my mum asked me what was going on,
I knew I had to tell her.
I just knew if I told her I would never go back,
because I knew she would never let me.
When she finally left him,
it was a huge relief.
And when she actually told us
what some of the things that he'd done,
which we didn't know about…
I just couldn't believe it.
I just don't know how she stayed as long as she did.
I think she probably wanted that idea
of the happy family,
and the parents, and the children,
which she, obviously, didn't have.
[Bec] It was really hard because a part of me
wanted to keep the family together.
I felt like the kids needed a dad,
and to break that family up,
myself coming from a broken home,
it wasn't easy.
So I thought that we're better off…
in it than away from it,
which is so far from the truth.
So, it took, you know,
a long time to realize that
they were better off without that monster in their life.
[uplifting music]
[Bec] It's that stupid stigma where everyone thinks
that you have to have your parents together
to be happy.
[Mary] But once she had accepted that
that was not going to happen,
she was able to move on.
[uplifting music]
[Bec] It appears to me now that they were always at risk.
You know, seeing that happen to their mom,
the things that they've seen.
I know Zake remembers some things,
and that's not fair
for a kid to have to see that at that age.
So, that was my turning point.
I had to get them out.
It wasn't just to save my life, it was to save them.
To win the championship belt
and to have that around my waist
and awarded to me,
and to make history and be the first woman ever
to win a Bare Knuckle World Championship…
It's hard to put it into words.
It was an amazing… it's an amazing feeling now.
At that point in time,
it just, it didn't feel real.
It felt…
Yeah, it was a crazy feeling.
It really didn't sink in until I got home.
I filed for divorce
a year after we had split.
I don't know how he took it.
He never fought it.
I went to court and he wasn't there.
So, it all went smoothly, I guess,
because he never fought it.
There was a young girl
that unfortunately fell into the same…
hands of Dan Hyatt.
She was young when they met,
she worked for him in some capacity,
and he groomed her.
Her mum actually contacted me
because she knew how vocal I'd been about the abuse
and trying to warn people to stay away from him.
And she was frightened for her daughter's life.
And she reached out to me on tips
to try and get her away from him, I guess.
She was a lot like me at that age.
She was rebellious and wanted to do what she wanted to do,
so her mum was distraught,
didn't know how to get her away from this monster.
'Cause she knew he was a monster.
[sirens blaring]
When Dan was finally convicted,
I was happy he was finally behind bars.
I was happy that he was outed.
He could no longer go on and abuse more girls.
It was like a weight lifted off, I guess…
for it to all finally come to light.
It took a lot of time to move on completely.
A long time, you know, there was a lot of triggers.
I probably went a year without sleep.
I had security cameras put up around my house
because I was afraid he was gonna come in and kill us.
I had put up walls,
I never… I didn't let anyone get close to me emotionally.
And that's family, friends, boyfriends.
It took a long time to get
to the point where I can trust people again.
But I've moved on completely from it.
It doesn't control my life,
it doesn't define me,
it doesn't shape what I'm doing now
or who I am today.
It is something that happened to me,
but it isn't me any longer.
[squealing]
[Jacqui] I'm very proud of Rebecca for what she's achieved.
Like, she's managed to pull herself out of the shit,
pull herself out of a very frightening, crappy situation.
And earn a living to raise two kids
and live a happy life, I suppose.
[Malcolm] Think I'm lucky to know
who Bec is.
Lucky to know that she's larrikin,
but she's fun.
And she's not what a lot of people think she is.
I'm fortunate that I get to know her.
I'm really, really proud of her.
Even though I don't like the fighting,
I'm proud of what she's achieved.
I'm proud of her as a mother.
[Adrian] She's a hero to them.
They can't miss an opportunity
to brag about their mum.
And so they should, their mum is a hero.
[Mary] What's most inspiring about Rebecca's story
is the fact that no matter how hard you fall,
you can always get back up again.
You can always try
and change the course of your life,
because that's what you have to do
after domestic violence.
[Malcolm] Advice to someone else
in a situation like what Bec went through?
My advice would be…
Talk to someone,
talk to your teacher,
talk to your coach,
talk to your neighbour,
talk to someone.
[Mary] She had to dig deep to keep going forward,
and that's the message that she wants to give other girls
that are in the same situation,
that you can turn your life around,
you can find the strength to move on
and move past it.
She's certainly an inspiration.
[Bec] I'd like to raise more awareness.
I'd like to share my story
in hopes that it helps other people.
I'd like to give people the tools and the skills to,
if they will ever find themselves in my situation,
to be able to get out of it
or to never fall into this situation.
And basically, just…
get people to just love who they are.
Be strong, be loud,
be authentic.
I don't think I can change the world. [chuckles]
I think the world needs a lot of fixing.
But, you know, I just want…
I want people to find their voice
and find their strength and their self worth.
That's my biggest thing,
is learning to love yourself
and learning to want more for yourself.
And don't settle for less.
Because I bet, like, the happier you are,
the happier you're gonna make people around you,
and it's just a cycle that it feeds on to other people.
What you give out in the world,
they're gonna give out as well.
So, definitely, self worth,
and just know that you deserve better,
and go out there and get it.
Don't go sit and wait for it to come.
Go out there and get it.
[Bec] Whoo-hoo!
Say something to mummy.
Hi Mummy. I love you.
You're beautiful!