Fight of her life

Fifteen years ago, TJay Thompson put a makeshift ring in the middle of Gussie L’Amours near the airport and invited anybody to participate in a fight.

"Think ‘Beyond Thunderdome,’ " Thompson said, referring to the 1985 Mad Max movie. "It was like the wild, wild West with no rules. The fire code would hold 350 and we’d have 700 people in there."

Thompson held an eight-man tournament that night, beginning a 15-year run as a promoter that has led to Saturday night’s ProElite MMA event at the Blaisdell Arena.

Not knowing what to expect, Thompson watched as Kawika Pa‘aluhi destroyed three opponents in less than 5 minutes total, winning the first ever FutureBrawl tournament.

Eventually, Thompson took his show to the Blaisdell Arena, and in 2002, Pa‘aluhi fought professionally for the final time, knocking out Bobby Southworth in 16 seconds.

That night, a sixth-grader named Raquel Pa‘aluhi sat in the crowd, and it wasn’t only her father that caught her eye.

"There was a girl fight, and I looked at it and in my head I thought, ‘One thing I want to do before I die is fight,’ " Pa‘aluhi said. "It was never something that came to pass until two years ago, but as a sixth-grader, I thought, ‘Wow, that was cool.’

"You never see girls fight."

That changes on Saturday, as Pa‘aluhi will face Olympic silver medalist Sara McMann in one of six main-card bouts for ProElite’s first MMA event under its own name.

With 10 fights in all beginning at 5:30 p.m., the event is headlined by a rematch between Maui’s Kendall Grove and Joe Riggs and the mixed martial arts debut of Reagan Penn, brother of UFC two-division champion B.J. Penn.

Pa‘aluhi is 3-1 in four professional fights in the X-1 organization. McMann was a wrestling silver medalist in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and has won her first three professional fights, all in the past two months.

"She’s a world-class athlete, but so am I," Pa‘aluhi said. "People just haven’t had a chance to see that yet."

Pa‘aluhi has been around combat sports from the beginning, spending much time at the gym with her father and three siblings.

Her only brother, David, played football at Waianae and Oregon State before recently joining the military instead of pressing a possible NFL career.

Of all the siblings, Raquel said she "was the least coordinated" and probably the least likely to become a fighter.

Now, she’s on the verge of a breakout win that could catapult her into the elite MMA women’s fighters.

"A win over Sara would put me into that mainstream for women’s MMA," she said. "To beat her would be a big thing because everyone knows who she is."

McMann, whose professional MMA career is only two months old, is known mostly for her wrestling achievements.

That’s something she’s hoping to change on Saturday.

"I hope that in the end I’m able to work to the best of my abilities and get the win," McMann said. "I know Raquel is a tough opponent. … This isn’t going to be a steamrolling."

Doors open at 5 p.m.