Chelsea “Hammer” Hackett was just 12 years old when her dad took her to a fight club in an underground car park for the first time.

He handed her a headguard and MMA gloves, set a timer for three minutes, and told her to fight a 16-year-old boy. Some girls may have shied away from the challenge, but Chelsea relished the opportunity.

“I threw the kitchen sink at this guy,” she said in a recent interview. “He wasn’t trying to hit me, but afterwards I realised I had it in me, and dad realised I had that sort of dog in me.”

She started going to the car park three days a week to fight, and it proved to be the perfect foundation for a career in mixed martial arts (MMA).

A CHILDHOOD DOMINATED BY COMBAT SPORTS

MMA fighter Chelsea Hackett in training executing a kick move.

Chelsea began her journey by signing up for an after school Taekwondo club at the age of eight. Four years later, she gained a black belt.

While some fathers escort their daughters to Taylor Swift concerts or shopping malls, Chelsea’s dad was busy taking her to underground Chinese boxing clubs to hone her fighting skills.

She then began visiting the legendary Boonchu Gym on the Gold Coast to learn Muay Thai with 10-time world champion John Wayne Parr.

Chelsea was a natural. She won gold medals at the IFMA World Muay Thai Championships in 2014 and 2015, and she also clinched the WBC World Lightweight Muay Thai title. By 2019, she had a 16-4-3 record as a professional Muay Thai fighter, and she was ready to transition to the gruelling world of MMA.

TRANSITIONING TO MMA

MMA fighter Chelsea Hackett punches her opponent in an MMA fight.

The process was undoubtedly a major learning curve for the young martial artist. “The biggest transition was that my training load doubled,” she told ESPN.

“Muay Thai is very traditional, it’s doing the same thing every day, and is all about striking. You’re running every day, you’re doing strength and conditioning.

“The major difference was all the disciplines that are involved in MMA compared to Muay Thai. I couldn’t just transition and just do my striking training – that’s the smallest piece of the puzzle coming to MMA.

“I had to add my wrestling sessions, I had to add my jiu jitsu but also keep my conditioning upgoing. “I was doing double the hours in the gym every single day just to get all my disciplines in through the week.

“The volume of the sessions, it was a different load on my body. I had to adapt to it, especially the wrestling. At the start I found that the wrestling took a real toll on my body and then my body started getting used to it.”

Chelsea made her Eternal MMA debut as a bantamweight, taking on Mel Zeman on the Gold Coast, and they fought to a draw.

The 5 ft. 4 ins fighter then dropped down to flyweight, and she rattled off consecutive victories over Danielle Hayes, Nicole Szepesvary and Rhiannon Thompson. That took her professional MMA record to 3-0-1, and it earned her a shot at the big time.

SIGNING WITH THE PFL

Chelsea gained a reputation as one of the most formidable young flyweights in the business, and she ended up competing in Dana White’s Contenders Series 4 in November 2020. She hoped to earn a UFC contract, but she ended up losing to Victoria Leonardo.

That led to the toughest spell of her career. She was inactive for almost three years, as the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the world, Australia went into lockdown, and opportunities did not present themselves in the aftermath.

“I’m a true competitor and I just constantly want to fight. The three years of inactivity I had were tough. It’s such a small, shallow pool of women in Australia to fight with, so I wasn’t getting matched. I was constantly in the gym trying to get better at jiu-jitsu and wrestling, and just get better in general, while being inactive in the cage.”

She was handed a lifeline when the Professional Fighters League (PFL), a rival promotion to UFC and Bellator, signed her in 2023. “I’m so grateful for the PFL, because they came at a time when I was desperate to fight and they signed me off the back of inactivity, so I honestly just can’t thank them enough for giving me the opportunity.”

Chelsea responded emphatically, submitting opponent Ky Bennett with a rear-naked choke hold on her PFL debut in San Antonio, Texas.

That win took her professional record to 4-1-1, and it led to an outpouring of emotion inside the Boeing Center. “All my emotions came out. It was just a three-year build-up, and [I realised] this is exactly where you’re meant to be.”

TIME TO REBUILD AHEAD OF THE 2025 SEASON

MMA is a sport that delivers soaring highs and crushing lows. After making a successful PFL debut, Chelsea lost to the highly-rated Jena Bishop in April 2024.

She was then handed a daunting showdown with unbeaten English fighter Dakota Ditcheva – the PFL’s golden girl – in June. It was the co-main event at PFL 4 in Uncasville, Connecticut, and Chelsea was installed as the $14 underdog.

However, she is never one to back down from a challenge. “Whatever opportunity is in front of you, you take it. That’s how I’ve always lived my life, so when the Dakota fight came up, there was no way I was taking an easy route. There’s a reason why I matched with her at this point in my career.”

She lost the fight after taking a brutal punch to the body, and Ditcheva emerged from the fight as the top seed in the PFL’s flyweight tournament. It was a setback for Chelsea, but she is still just 25, and there is plenty of time for her to mount a fresh assault on the division.

“I wanna see Chelsea Hackett rebuild herself, because I think she’s got a very bright future,” said former UFC star Dan Hardy after the bout.

Chelsea now has 31 fights under her belt, and she is training hard in anticipation of the next battle. “You have to trust the process and just face it head on,” she says.