Juliet Ukah is a woman who likes to take charge and grapple with huge challenges. As well as excelling at combat sports including taekwondo, boxing and kickboxing, the Nigerian serves her nation in her day job as a police corporal.
The 26-year-old, who turned to mixed martial arts (MMA) as a reluctant stand-in fighter in 2023, is about to become a part of history when the Professional Fighters League (PFL) holds its first show in Africa in Cape Town today.
Ukah will join the likes of hugely popular 2024 European flyweight champion Dakota Ditcheva and Bellator middleweight title winner Johnny Eblen on the bill of one of the most high-profile MMA events ever to be held on the continent.
“I feel like a queen and I feel good about being the first African female fighter signed by the PFL,” Ukah told BBC Sport Africa.
“There is something they see in me that made them need to call me into the team.”
Five years before starting out in MMA, Ukah was inspired to join the Nigeria Police Force by figures including long jumper Chioma Ajunwa, who was herself an officer and won the country’s first ever Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
All six of her MMA bouts have resulted in wins since Ukah stepped into the unknown after a request by Henry George – now the president of the Nigeria Mixed Martial Arts Federation – to replace an unavailable fighter on a card in Cameroon in April 2023.
She earned her first knockout in DR Congo last June and is now ready to face home fighter Ceileigh Niedermayr in a strawweight showdown at the Grand Arena.
The inaugural PFL Africa tournament will feature 24 fighters from 14 African countries, with their second event taking place in Johannesburg on 9 August.
