Let’s Chat With Heavyweight Abbey Frazier

1. For those of our readers who don’t know a great deal about you, why don’t we start with a bio of sorts.

I was born in Wichita, KS on October 24, 1990. We lived there until I was six years old, when we moved to Overland Park, KS. I have two older brothers, two younger brothers, and a younger sister. I also have a younger step brother and a younger step sister. Both of my parents are very happily remarried. 

Sports have always been a huge part of my life and my family’s as well. I started out swimming; in fact, I could swim before I could walk, and I loved being in the water. I didn’t start swimming competitively until I was in sixth grade. Next was t-ball, which eventually turned into softball. I was a pitcher for a few years and as I got onto more competitive teams, they started utilizing my length at first base. Soon after that was soccer. 

Soccer was my first love. I swore I was going to go to the Olympics and play for the American soccer team. I loved playing goalie, I could pretty much play anywhere on the field, but the goal box was what gave me the most adrenaline and satisfaction. People used to tell me how fearless I was and it made me want to play in the Olympics even more.

Once I reached high school, softball and soccer were in the same season and since I went to such a large school, they wouldn’t let me play both, so I chose to play soccer. Once I got into sixth grade, not only did I start swimming, but I started playing recreation basketball on the team that my Mom was coaching. My whole life my parents wanted me to be a basketball player, but I was never interested in it. In fact, if someone wanted to play basketball I would seriously dread it! Somehow my Mom talked me into playing on her team, and the rest is history; I was on a very competitive team that summer. In high school, I played volleyball, basketball, and soccer. 

Between my sophomore and junior year, my parents decided it would be a good idea to move to Louisburg. I was going from a 6A school to a 4A school. At first, I hated the idea of leaving my friends and coaches. It turned out to be the best move of my life and I completely fell in love with Louisburg and the people in it. Instead of playing soccer at Louisburg, which was in the fall instead of spring, I decided to throw for the track team. The thing I liked most about the track team was that it was individually based. I did not have to rely on my teammates for my success. My first year throwing, I made it to the state track meet and got fifth place!

2. Let’s go into a bit of detail about your collegiate basketball career and then your change of heart.

My senior year, I committed to play basketball at Southwest Baptist University, which is a D2 school in the MIAA conference. My freshman year was one of the best years of my life. I made some of the best friends there and had the best teammates! Seems like the only person I did not get along with was my coach, and off the court we got along great! He got fired the year after most of our team left. I had never gotten along with every single one of my teammates until I got to SBU. I played one year there and transferred to Independence Community College. One of the greatest memories I have from ICC was the four Latvians that I got to know really well. I love learning new languages and I pick them up quickly (I can speak Spanish) so I was learning Latvian from them. I still keep in touch with them, so someday it’s my goal to make it out to Latvia to see them! At ICC, I had knee surgery at the beginning of the season. Luckily, I was able to play the last half of the season, but decided that I did not want to go on and play basketball anymore. I can still remember the day that I called all of the coaches that were recruiting me and told them that I was not going to play anymore. It was by far one of the hardest decisions of my life, just ahead of picking a college to play for out of high school. I decided to come to Emporia State and finish up my pre-med degree.

My junior year was one of the toughest years for me. I had a whole change of heart in what I wanted to do as a career, so I changed my major to psychology. I was also questioning myself as a person because I had no identity. I wasn’t going to be a doctor anymore, and I was no longer a student athlete. I had proved nothing else in my life and had no other identity. I decided to walk on to the ESU track and field team to throw the disc. It was great! I forgot how much I loved to throw the discus and being around teammates brought me out of my slump. Along with track, I was playing intramurals with a fabulous group of girls. We play flag football, volleyball, basketball, and softball and we have never lost a game in the two years that we have had our team together. 

Once I was done with track, I was given the opportunity to coach a high school girls’ basketball team. I fell in love with all of the girls and got to know all of them on a personal level, I also enjoyed coaching the game of basketball. We had an extremely successful season and got to make a trip to the 2A state tournament. This year was not as successful as last years; we ended up losing in the sub-state championship. The best feeling about coaching is when you tell one of your players to do something and they do it and it is successful! You can see their eyes light up and the game finally clicks to them. 

The girls absolutely mean the world to me, in fact once I stop coaching I know it is going to be extremely difficult because I want to give those girls the best high school basketball experience that they could possibly have. Although I was coaching and playing intramurals, I missed the competing aspect of sports. I am an extremely competitive person if you guys haven’t figured that out yet, and I make almost everything I do a competition.

3. What prompted your decision to transition to a mixed martial arts career?

How I got into MMA is a funny story. I’m really not a fighter, I have very few people I do not get along with and before, I had never been in a legitimate fight. One summer day, we were having a get together at my house for one of my roommate’s birthdays. He did something that I really did not appreciate so I started throwing some combos at him, not having a clue what I was doing of course. A couple of the guys that I fight with now were at the party and watched me and asked me to come to the gym to start training, and six weeks later, 

I was in the cage fighting 3-0 Staci Bradshaw, my first ever MMA fight. You want to talk about nervous?! That was the most nervous that I had ever been in my life! The whole walk to the cage I was asking myself if I had made the right decision to become a fighter. I ended up winning the fight in a bigger way that I ever could have imagined; I won with a TKO in 22 seconds! It has been almost six months and I have not had another fight since, which is very frustrating.

4. What is the status of your MMA journey and where do you see it leading?

I am currently 1-0 and training for a future possible fight. I am working my way down to the 190 range so that it hopefully broadens my potential fight pool. I don’t really have long term goals as far as MMA. It would be great if I could get a few more fights and prove myself as a top fighter, but I am not going to sit here and say I am going to go pro. However, if it happens, then it happens.

5. Being a Heavyweight female presents some challenges in fight-finding. What are your thoughts on the status of women’s division 185 and above?

As a heavyweight female, it is extremely difficult to find fights, in fact, if you have had more than five, you should consider yourself very blessed because it has been a challenge for me to find a second one. There are female heavyweights out there, but since I live in the middle of the country it is hard to get people to travel in from the coast, which is where most of them are located (Michigan, West Virginia, Florida, and Texas). The status of FMMA at 185+ is growing as we speak. 

With the help of many people who are behind the scenes being match makers and spreading the word, we are a growing population. Although we are growing, there are still people who do not enjoy watching female heavyweight fights. I understand it is because we may not be the most athletic or entertaining to watch and it is absolutely not my goal to make people change their mind. If they want to think that way, then they don’t need to be a fan of mine.

6. Where will we see Abbey Frazier a year from now?

A year from now, I hope to either have a nice job so that I can support myself and pay off what college debt I have, or I also would not mind getting my Master’s degree in clinical psychology. Either way I am good with, maybe I can do both at once. At some point in time I will have to earn my Master’s degree and my Ph. D because I want to be a sports psychologist.  This is basically a counselor for athletes.

7. Do you have any sponsors or supporters you’d like to shoutout?

​I don’t have any sponsors, but there are definitely people I can thank. For starters my family, they are so supportive with what I am doing. I know it is not the easiest thing to watch your daughter get into a cage with someone who wants to knock me out as fast as possible, so the fact that I had my family at the fight meant a lot to me. 

Secondly, the fellows and ladies atBlacKOut Training, which is the gym that I fight out of, they have helped me so much as far as teaching me the ropes of MMA. Also the people who are a part of BFC, which the promotion that I fight for. They are incredible, we are like family.

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