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Anita will headline Pakistan\u2019s first international women\u2019s MMA fight [Faras Ghani\/Al Jazeera]\u2018A missing piece\u2019<\/p>\nIslamabad, Pakistan \u2013 Six months into her training as a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, Anita Karim grappled with her father on their living room floor, knocking him unconscious in six seconds.<\/p>\n
Sitting in a busy coffee shop in Pakistan\u2019s capital on a balmy day in October, Anita laughs as she recalls that summer afternoon in 2017.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
\u201cPapa was stronger, and he pulled me down, but I had better technique, so I went behind him and applied a rear-naked choke \u2013 a martial arts chokehold \u2013 and counted the seconds until he was out,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe regained consciousness quickly,\u201d she adds, \u201cbut not before my mum had screamed at me for trying to kill my father.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her father, however, was impressed with her skills.<\/p>\n
It was Anita\u2019s first trip back to her family home in Karimabad, a historic town in northern Pakistan\u2019s mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan region 2,500 metres (8,200ft) above sea level and 700km (435 miles) from Islamabad, where she was living and training with her three older brothers.<\/p>\n
A few months earlier, she told her parents over a tense phone call that her heart was set on MMA and she was dropping out of university to become a fighter.<\/p>\n
Dressed in light blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a brown bomber jacket, Anita smiles as she retraces her journey into the brutal world of MMA fighting.<\/p>\n
MMA is a full-contact combat sport that combines techniques from boxing, grappling, karate, Brazilian jiujitsu and kickboxing. A typical MMA bout leaves both fighters with a bloodied face, bruised body, swollen eyes and, occasionally, broken limbs.<\/p>\n
Before Anita\u2019s international debut in July 2018, no woman from Pakistan had ever competed in an international MMA fight.<\/p>\n
Now, eight years later, Anita is preparing to step into the ring as a home favourite when Pakistan hosts its first-ever professional women\u2019s MMA fight on Saturday. She will fight Parisa Shamsabadi of Iran for the female championship.<\/p>\n
Anita will headline Pakistan\u2019s first international women\u2019s MMA fight [Faras Ghani\/Al Jazeera]\u2018A missing piece\u2019<\/p>\n
MMA did not emerge on the sporting landscape in Pakistan until the early 2010s, and it was not officially recognised as a sport in the country until 2020.<\/p>\n
But Anita threw caution to the wind and swapped a spot at a renowned national university for a profession that no Pakistani woman had ventured into before. There were no guarantees of a steady income or acceptance in the male-dominated sport.<\/p>\n
Still, her father, Nisar, and her mother, Nelofar, reluctantly allowed their daughter to proceed but not without apprehensions and a warning: There would be no giving up when the going got tough.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t mind when my parents told me I couldn\u2019t turn back from the road I had taken to become an MMA fighter. Martial arts was something I grew up with, so I was determined to carve out a career in the sport,\u201d she says matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n
Nisar, who worked as a security guard, had long been interested in combat sports, and his three sons \u2013 Uloomi Karim, Ali Sultan and Ehtisham Karim \u2013 had all tried their hands at MMA long before their sister became an international athlete.<\/p>\n
After sitting at the cafe for more than 10 minutes, Anita does not seem interested in buying a coffee or even a bottle of water. She\u2019s eager to carry on with her story, which turns towards her brothers and how their Islamabad gym, Fight Fortress, became her gateway into the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brothers began training other athletes from a small patch of grass in a park, and now their gym is amongst the most sought-after places for MMA training,\u201d Anita says, her face beaming with pride.<\/p>\n
Initially, she tagged along to the gym just to hang out with her brothers. Gradually, Anita started dabbling in light training to stay fit and resume her earlier martial arts training.<\/p>\n
Watching her brothers train got Anita thinking. She would picture herself with a strong body, a skill set of the best MMA moves and her arms raised in victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt that in MMA, I had found a missing piece in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Anita began training in MMA in 2017 at a combat sports gym run by her brothers in Islamabad [Faras Ghani\/Al Jazeera]A form of self-defence<\/p>\n
It is a couple of hours after Friday\u2019s midday prayers, and the cafe is now bustling with a late afternoon surge of customers \u2013 students settling in with a cup of coffee and books, delivery drivers picking up orders, and groups of young men and women taking selfies and chatting over coffee.<\/p>\n
Anita, however, seems oblivious to her surroundings and the increasing noise levels as she travels back in time to her childhood.<\/p>\n
Born on October 2, 1996, into a family of the Burusho people, an ethnolinguistic group, Anita says she was raised in a \u201csimple middle-class lifestyle\u201d in the mountains.<\/p>\n
The people of Karimabad number about 15,000 and mostly follow Ismailism, a sect of Shia Islam, and rely on agriculture as a source of income.<\/p>\n
Anita\u2019s hometown is the capital of Hunza District and sits in a valley known as the crown jewel of Pakistan\u2019s breathtaking northern landscape of icy blue rivers, snow-capped mountains, lush green terraces of fruit orchards, centuries-old forts and glaciers.<\/p>\n
The family\u2019s terraced house was built into the rugged Karakoram mountains.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike most other houses in the town, ours was also high up above the river and offered spectacular views of the valley,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Anita would wake up to see the sun rise from behind the snow-capped Rakaposhi (the Shining Wall), the 27th highest mountain in the world, and reluctantly leave the warmth of her bed on bitterly cold mornings to start her school day.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20251026_123949-1-1767778989.jpg\")
The Hunza River flows through the Karakoram mountain range in Pakistan\u2019s Gilgit-Baltistan region [Hafsa Adil\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n
She and her brothers, like most local children, walked to school on the narrow, unevenly sloped streets that run through Karimabad. Given the short distances and mostly unpaved roads, walking is how most locals have got around for decades.<\/p>\n
After school, Anita would make her way to the taekwondo lessons that her father enrolled her in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a way, my father sparked an interest in combat sports by pushing me towards taekwondo when I was seven,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted me to learn martial arts so I could be strong like my brothers and as a form of self-defence. He felt that physical strength could instil a sense of independence in me from an early age.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old remembers trying to sneak away after school to play with her friends in the neighbourhood, only for her dad to catch her and pull her back to her lessons. \u201cHe would never worry about my grades, but I dared not miss those after-school martial arts classes,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n
Anita explains that it was important to Nisar that she could defend herself.<\/p>\n
Leaning forward after a few seconds of silence, she recalls an incident when a man chased her while she was out working in the fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t too far from my house, so I hurried back home and told my father, who came out and furiously beat the man. I added a few kicks as well,\u201d she remembers with a bitter laugh.<\/p>\n
It brings back more early memories of fighting. They involved putting some of her skills to use in neighbourhood scuffles between children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would be pushed forward in all neighbourhood fights, especially if they involved boys. Yeah, I got into quite a few of them and beat up many boys.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Anita trains at Fight Fortress, a combat training gym run by her brothers in Islamabad [Faras Ghani\/Al Jazeera]Childhood in the mountains<\/p>\n
After having three sons, Anita\u2019s father doted on her and she mostly got her way with him \u2013 from getting away with the occasional poor grades at school to later winning his approval on her choice of career. But she couldn\u2019t do the same with her \u201cmilitary chief\u201d mother, who taught her household chores.<\/p>\n
Nelofar, a housewife who later worked as a tea lady at a local college, would get her 10-year-old daughter to help with cooking, cleaning and laundry.<\/p>\n
Anita would also put in strenuous shifts in the fields.<\/p>\n
The \u201cearly years of physical training\u201d, as she calls them with a sarcastic laugh, involved climbing back home into the mountains from the low-lying terraced fields in the valley with a heavy load on her back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would carry sacks full of apricots from the family\u2019s grove in spring and summer, the last remaining green leaves and grass for my family\u2019s cattle in autumn and firewood in winter,\u201d she says nonchalantly, indicating how it was embedded into mountain children\u2019s everyday lives.<\/p>\n
The arduous hikes home would sometimes take an hour or longer and would be followed by the task of washing and spreading out the deep-golden apricots to dry them in the sun.<\/p>\n
And while Anita wasn\u2019t fond of carrying out those laborious tasks as a schoolgirl, she looks back on those years with gratitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a link back to my roots, a part of my identity that I don\u2019t want to leave behind \u2013 not like I have much choice as mum still keeps me on my toes whenever I return home,\u201d she jokes, adding that she\u2019s grateful for the opportunity it provides to disconnect from the grind of city life.<\/p>\n
While having her day packed with chores and after-school lessons, which also included evening classes at the local religious centre, Anita was expected to do well in school and eventually go to university.<\/p>\n
Hunza is renowned for its high literacy rate \u2013 95 percent compared with the national average of 61 percent \u2013 and for providing equal educational and entrepreneurial opportunities for men and women. It is an anomaly, especially for a remote region in Pakistan, where many girls in similarly isolated villages and towns do not have access to primary education. Overall, one in five girls in the country is married before the age of 18.<\/p>\n
Anita credits her community\u2019s leaders, specifically the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Shia Muslim community internationally, for encouraging parents to educate their daughters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe follow our [Ismaili] imam\u2019s guidance and instructions. It helps maintain a strong sense of bond within the community,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile in other parts of Pakistan, different communities try to bring each other down, we build each other up in Hunza,\u201d she adds proudly.<\/p>\n
The conversation returns to her move in 2017 to Islamabad.<\/p>\n
While there to study for a university degree, Anita, then 20, found herself reluctant to stick to the \u201cmould\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our [Pakistani] culture, as soon as a girl is born, it is presumed that after attaining a certain level of education \u2013 if she\u2019s lucky \u2013 she will get married and have kids,\u201d she says with a clear look of annoyance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what a woman\u2019s life should be restricted to,\u201d she adds, shaking her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe should have the right to make her own choices. I was lucky to have supportive parents who backed me when I took that leap of faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20251027_164913-1-1767778979.jpg\")
Karimabad is the main town in the Hunza Valley and is surrounded by the Karakoram range [Hafsa Adil\/Al Jazeera]\u2018The Arm Collector\u2019<\/p>\n
Once Anita\u2019s parents were on board with her MMA career plan, her brothers took her under their wing for training.<\/p>\n
That first year, she focused on building her physical strength, agility and stamina in addition to mastering the skills on her trainee fighter\u2019s CV.<\/p>\n
An MMA fighter must not only be strong to last in the ring \u2013 usually for three rounds of five minutes each \u2013 but also must quickly bounce back from an onslaught of kicks, punches, knee and elbow strikes, body slams, joint locks and chokeholds.<\/p>\n
Anita\u2019s brothers knew what she would face. Ehtisham and Ali had been training MMA fighters since 2008, and Uloomi made his own MMA debut in 2014. So they put her through months of rigorous training.<\/p>\n
Her broad smile and light-hearted tone return when she talks about her siblings.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brothers are my best friends, my role models, my mentors and my toughest trainers,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Uloomi, who was then one of the best MMA fighters in Pakistan, would show no restraint when training with his sister, delivering body slams, knee kicks and a flurry of punches to her face.<\/p>\n
As the only girl at the gym and the first female Pakistani MMA fighter, Anita\u2019s sparring partners and practice fight opponents were all men, which helped her build up her strength for her first fight.<\/p>\n
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Most of Anita\u2019s training partners are men [Faras Ghani\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n
Most international fighters sign with global promotions, private companies that contract fighters and organise competitions, on the back of amateur fights. Because women\u2019s MMA fights were not introduced in Pakistan until after 2020, Anita could not follow that path.<\/p>\n
Instead, she participated in local martial arts competitions, won most of them and picked up her fighter\u2019s nickname \u201cThe Arm Collector\u201d.<\/p>\n
Anita shrugs nonchalantly as she recalls the painful incident from a Brazilian jiujitsu match when she dislocated her opponent\u2019s elbow. She laughs with a competitive spirit when she tells the story of how she earned the nickname.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a girl down on the mat in an Americana lock, a shoulder-lock move, but she wasn\u2019t willing to tap out [of the fight], so I looked quizzically at my brother Uloomi, who was watching from my ringside corner. He told me to apply more pressure. I yanked harder and felt her arm go limp,\u201d she recounts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe girl\u2019s teammate came onto the mat to face me next and vowed revenge. I pulled the same move on her, and the result was the same. That\u2019s how I got the nickname.\u201d<\/p>\n
Breaking limbs is not common in martial arts fights, but some chokehold positions can result in snapped or dislocated arms if the fighter, especially an amateur, does not tap out swiftly enough.<\/p>\n
With no prospects of an MMA tournament at home due to a lack of competitions and female fighters, Anita made the leap to professional MMA fighting in July 2018.<\/p>\n
Her baptism by fire came in Singapore against Nyrene Crowley, an experienced fighter from New Zealand seven years her senior. Crowley forced Anita into submission two minutes into the second round. It was a reality check for the novice and one that sent her back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n
Back at the gym in Islamabad, the training sessions got more gruelling and the practice fights more intense. Seven months later, Anita returned to the same ring as a smarter and stronger fighter.<\/p>\n
Lighter on her feet, more patient with her moves and visibly more muscular, she faced Indonesia\u2019s Gita Suharsono for her second fight.<\/p>\n
The 152cm-tall (5ft-tall) Anita used her shorter height to get under Gita\u2019s 5cm (6-inch) taller frame to land hooks and jabs that left the Indonesian frustrated. After three rounds and a unanimous decision by the judges, Anita secured her first international MMA win.<\/p>\n
![\"Anita](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/S2-1767867676.jpg\")
Anita reacts after winning her first international MMA fight against Indonesia\u2019s Gita Suharson in February 2019 [Courtesy of Anita Karim]Hero\u2019s welcome<\/p>\n
As the first Pakistani woman to win an international fight, Anita expected the result to make waves back home, but she wasn\u2019t prepared for the scenes that unfolded upon her return a few days later.<\/p>\n
It was one of the most remarkable moments in her life, and Anita holds on to the memories dearly, recalling them with tears in her eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was stunned to see hundreds of supporters chanting my name and jostling to get a closer glimpse of me at Islamabad airport,\u201d she says, her voice raised with excitement.<\/p>\n
After squeezing past the crowd under a shower of petals with garlands around her neck and bouquets in hand, Anita stopped in her tracks. A group of men had encircled her in an impromptu dance set to traditional Hunzai music.<\/p>\n
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Anita spent five years honing her MMA skills at the Fairtex Training Center in Pattaya, Thailand [Courtesy of Anita Karim]Hustle to stay afloat<\/p>\n