Rachel Wray was a cheerleader for the Kansas City Chiefs who attended Arkansas. Now she’s pursuing a new career in mixed martial arts. In September she made her amateur debut (video below) and won by TKO stoppage. As you can see from the pictures, the only thing standing between her and combat sport stardom is a really bad nickname like “Celebrity Chef.” I’m sorry. We were all thinking it.

Wray’s path to fighting started with an “alternative workout” at a local gym with some friends. Before long she was taking lessons and started to spar. From KC MMA:

I was absolutely horrible. This drove me to want it even more. I knew I had to make a choice between fighting and cheerleading. I chose fighting. I trained harder and took more private lessons. In the same shopping center was [Jason High and LC Davis's gym] HDMMA and I wandered in there to see what was going on. Everyone was so nice and just not what I expected from a MMA gym. So, I started training there too. One thing led to another, and now I feel comfortable enough to compete in the cage…I hope to fight 4-5 times over the next year.”

Jason High, her wrestling coach, is a 16-3 fighter who last fought in Strikeforce. Wray’s next fight will be in January at Harrah’s in Kansas City.

Part 1

Part 2

[images via Cage Potato, @arielhelwani, KC MMA]