Angela Hill Is First Black Woman To Headline UFC Card: “People Need Heroes”
Angela Hill and Michelle Waterson will headline tomorrow night’s UFC Vegas 10 card, which will be a seminal moment in UFC history.
That’s because Hill is going to become the first Black woman to headline a UFC card.
“It’s big, and I didn’t even realize how big it was until (my manager) mentioned it to me,” Hill said during the UFC Vegas 10 virtual media scrum (via Danny Segura & John Morgan of MMA Junkie). “I think in a time like this, people need heroes, people need someone to look up to, someone to root for. And just the fact that this hasn’t happened yet is indicative of the fact that it is important. A lot of people would say, ‘Why does it matter?’ But if it doesn’t matter to you, that’s OK, but it does matter to the fans who see that and they’re like, ‘Finally, finally, we have some representation. Finally we have a face in this sport that we love, and we’ve been waiting for so long.’”
Hill, besides becoming the first-ever African American woman to headline a UFC card, is headlining her first UFC card ever.
The fighter is also a part of the Black Lives Matter movement, which Hill calls both cool and really important.
“Its really cool to be a part of the Black Lives Matter movement,” Hill explained. “It’s really important, and I think people try to pretend that it’s not and call it things that it isn’t because it’s hard to look at the violence. It’s hard to say there’s something wrong when you haven’t experienced it yourself. I think the reason it’s so important to Black people is because they’ve all had moments where they felt in danger or they felt they weren’t considered as human as their white counterparts, and it’s not something that disappeared when (former President Barack) Obama got elected. It’s not something that disappeared once cops got body cams. It’s something that’s still hurting the community right now. I think with the pandemic that’s going on right now, with just everything just being so divisive, it’s really brought it to light and made people pay attention to how hard the struggles are and the fact there needs to be some change.”
UFC Vegas 10 takes place on Saturday, September 12 from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada with Michelle Waterson and Angela Hill headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which streams live on ESPN+.
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