“I am obsessed with Jordans, I have like sixty pairs!” laughs GLORY 43 NEW YORK fighter Annisa Meksen. “I hope he watches my fight, then maybe he will want to sponsor me!”
Meksen (88-3, 29 KO's) is one of the world's most decorated female kickboxers and is making her GLORY debut in the Big Apple later this month, where she will face Brazil's Jady Menezes (10-1, 5 KO's), also making her debut in this Madison Square Garden encounter.
Menezes comes from Curitiba, Brazil and trains under coach Julio Borges, who in his competition years was a training and sparring partner of such luminaries as Wanderlei Silva and Maurico 'Shogun' Rua at the iconic Chute Boxe gym.
The benefits of his experiences – including being the first Brazilian to fight at Lumpinee Stadium in Thailand – have been channelled into Menezes, but Meksen brings a whole other level of experience again: five European championships, eleven French national championships and 11 world titles from various organizations, including the WBC.
Meksen started training at the age of 12 after following her older brother Mehdi along to his kickboxing club. She was already training in kickboxing and karate at that point but kickboxing quickly took over; she competed for the first time a year later and won
“My brother was a kickboxer and I followed him to the gym. I was 12 years old. At 13 I had my first fight and became French champion at that age and weight. Immediately I had the desire awakened in me to become undisputed world champion one day,” she says.
“Every day, since I was 12 years old, I have woken up as a fighter. It is what I do in life. I wake, I train, rest, train again, go home. That is my life. It is a very simple life but for me I think this simplicity and dedication is the key to victory.”
Meksen says she was “good at school” and actually has two degrees in sports performance and training methodology. School was a priority in her younger years but she says her biggest motivator has always been “to put my name in the story of fight sports.” Under her longtime coach Benoit Mateu, head trainer at Olympique Garennois Boxe (OGB), she has been doing just that.
“That's why I am very happy to be entering GLORY – the best in the world are here and I am here to make big fights and capture the belt!” she says.
“I train hard, very hard - sometimes my trainer has to stop me, make me finish training. I think I am in a good team. We are not a huge team, although we are high-level, and so when one of us has a fight, all the team is able to focus and help me. Because I am a perfectionist, I do not neglect any details!”
Meksen and Menezes enter a women's super-bantamweight division currently ruled by Tiffany van Soest of Los Angeles, California. Both consider themselves worthy contenders for her crown but only one of them will move a step closer after they meet at GLORY 43 NEW YORK on Friday, July 14 at the iconic Madison Square Garden.
