“And it’s funny because I always get that question, ‘Why do you think that there aren’t more Black women in the UFC? There’s Black women dominating in all other sports, but why don’t you think that they’re rarely seen in MMA?’” Hill continues. “And I know it’s not me, but I feel like if I were more successful, then maybe you would see more faces there. So I’ve just been trying to be that role model that I would want to look up to as a young athlete, as well, and use that pressure, use that weight as a way to get out of bed in the morning when I don’t feel like training or a way to push past some mental block that I’m having with a certain move. I know I can do this; I just have to focus more and use it. Because the pressure’s never gonna go away. I’m never gonna stop caring about Black people, so I want to be a positive influence and be someone that people can look up to.”
She already is. And while she would have liked some of those close decisions to have gone in her direction, her work as an ambassador of the sport in and out of the Octagon isn’t determined by a win-loss record. And as hard as it can sometimes be to feel that way after a tough defeat, Hill has received plenty of messages that let her know she’s made an impact and is opening the doors she wants to.
A Timeline of African American and Black UFC Athlete Accomplishments
“I get most people saying that to me online,” Hill said. “They’ll go, ‘You got my daughter into MMA,’ or ‘You got my wife into MMA. She hated it before, then she watched a couple of your fights, and she’s like, ‘Oh my God!“ It’s funny, I think a lot of times when people are represented in most things, then you forget what it feels like not to be represented. So that’s why you have a lot of people who love hip-hop flocking to Eminem because they’re like, ‘Oh, this guy looks like me.’ And imagine if that was every other thing in the world, where it was dominated by people who don’t look like you.
„So it’s really funny when you see a TV show and the main character is a Black woman, you’re like, ‘Oh s**t, I’m gonna watch that,’ because you feel like you can put yourself in that character even easier than when you’re watching something where there are no Black people. It’s pretty cool to inspire people like that and open that door for them, like, ‘Hey, you can be an athlete,’ ‘Hey, you can be an MMA fighter,’ or you can do something you might have thought wouldn’t be welcoming to you because you don’t see people who look like you doing it.”
