Laura Sanko’s path to becoming the first woman to commentate on a UFC pay-per-view in 30 years wasn’t planned out as a kid. There was no five-year roadmap. It was fraught by personal struggles, finding therapy through fighting, and a stubborn refusal to accept that MMA belonged only to men.
Laura Sanko
“Mixed martial arts saved me at three different points of my life,” Sanko said in an earlier interview. When she first stepped into a gym in 2006, she just needed an escape. MMA became therapy for me because you literally can’t think about anything else when someone’s trying to punch you or when you’re doing jiu-jitsu and you’re in the middle of a physical puzzle.