Ten years ago, Ilima-Lei Macfarlane walked into a gym on the way to work thinking it looked cool and “maybe I should start getting back into shape.”
Flash forward a decade later and her name ranks up there with B.J. Penn and Max Holloway as all-time pioneers of mixed martial arts in Hawaii.
How it all happened, maybe she’ll never quite understand, but she’s always done it her way, on her terms. Saturday’s flyweight co-main event of Bellator 295 against No. 2-ranked Kana Watanabe at Blaisdell Arena is no different.
Macfarlane, ranked No. 3 at 125 pounds, has the high-ranked opponent she wants to set up a hopeful final fight for the belt against current champion Liz Carmouche, who helped her stay in the gym once she opened the door that day.
The path has been set. Now it’s up to her to make the final fights of her career go the way she hopes.
“I think that’s what sets me apart from a lot of other fighters is this was a total accident,” Macfarlane said Wednesday. “I think it makes it almost easier to step away and to pursue really what I wanted to do before fighting kind of fell into my lap.”
Unlike Penn and Holloway, who sought to become world champions from the start, Macfarlane never had those title dreams.
She trained, so it just made sense to try an amateur fight or two. A few successful amateur wins later opened the door to make a little bit of money.
The funny thing about her journey is the wins never stopped. Maybe there were other things she wanted to do, but how could she stop a career in which she never lost? Why put an early end to a good thing?
“Honestly, throughout my whole career, that’s kind of how I felt going into every fight, like, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this anymore.’” she said. “That was literally every fight. Even as I was going for the belt. Even when I got the belt. I’ve always had that mindset throughout the entirety of my career, but I am in a different chapter of my life now, including my personal life, where it is coming to a close, and so I just want to finish strong and leave a legacy behind me that it wasn’t a fluke. I made it to the top and I belong at the top.”
Macfarlane won the world title at 125 pounds six years ago and went on to defend it four times.
When big-time MMA had been absent from the state for a decade, Macfarlane brought it back in 2018 with her memorable submission of Valerie Letourneau that nearly brought the roof down of a Blaisdell Arena that has seen its share of roars from MMA fights.
“Being the one that was able to bring Bellator to the islands, being a wahine, being a Hawaiian, and being able to do that is the highlight of my career,” Macfarlane said Tuesday.
It wasn’t until the pandemic that Macfarlane suffered her first loss of any kind in an MMA fight, against Juliana Velasquez.
She fought again last year in Bellator’s third trip to Hawaii but suffered a neck injury that sent her to the hospital following a loss to Justine Kish.
That might have been the time to step away, but again and again, Macfarlane has said she doesn’t want to go out that way.
She won a unanimous decision last August to set up this last run and get back to Hawaii at least one more time.
“I don’t think I’m going to be one of those that’s like, I’m done, and then I’m not. I do want to retire definitively,” Macfarlane said. “The plan is, if I win this fight, I’m going to call for a title shot. It just makes sense that the winner Saturday gets the next shot, and that will be it. That will be the end.”
Saturday will be just the 15th fight of her career, ranking far behind Penn and Holloway. A championship run has sweetened it, but years and years from now, the title won’t be the first thing that comes to mind when hearing her name.
She was there on Mauna Kea, protesting the building of another large telescope on behalf of the cultural and spiritual rights of Native Hawaiians.
She formed a nonprofit to fight for the rights of indigenous women.
She stood up for herself and other women and brought public awareness to a terrible situation at Punahou involving a sexual abuse lawsuit against a former basketball coach going back to her high school days.
Whether her fighting career ends Saturday or soon after, her story is only just beginning. The cage might go away, but the hoards of fans who will pack the arena on Saturday won’t.
The Macfarlane name will always be remembered in Hawaii.
“I’m very grateful to have this platform to continue to fight for issues that I hold dear to my heart,” she said. “When you’re in the public spotlight, you are under so much scrutiny that it doesn’t matter what you do, you’re going to have haters. For every negative remark I’ve ever heard or felt, I get 10-fold in love and support, and that’s why Hawaii, hands down, I can say this so confidently, has the best support system.”
Bennett misses weight for title fight
DeAnna Bennett failed to make weight for her Bellator 294 main event flyweight title fight against champion Liz Carmouche.
The No. 4-ranked flyweight came in at 126.2 pounds, missing weight by more than a pound for tonight’s title fight at the Blaisdell Arena.
The fight will still go on, but Bennett is not eligible to win the title. Carmouche decided on her own to keep the title on the line, but it will become vacant if she loses.
Five of the top nine in the women’s 125-pound rankings are scheduled to fight this weekend in addition to the champion.
No. 2-ranked Kana Watanabe will challenge No. 3 Ilima-Lei Macfarlane in Saturday’s co-main event, and No. 7 Veta Arteaga will fight No. 9 Sumiko Inaba in a preliminary fight. Weighs-ins for those fights will take place today.
