Emily Ducote: ‘This Is Where I Need To Be’

To be a professional fighter is to accept that the job, at times, is one of contradictions, including the one Emily Ducote recently accepted in her last fight against Ashley Yoder. Ducote, a black belt in taekwondo and Brazilian jiu jitsu, generally prefers to keep things technical and trust her training. However, she knew the fight was in the balance heading into the third round, and, coming off back-to-back losses, getting her hand raised was the most important thing, regardless of how she got it done.

Ducote bit down on her mouthpiece, landed a career-best 57 significant strikes over the final five minutes, stuffed a takedown and got the victory. It was a gritty effort in a slugfest of a…