About to make her UFC debut, women's MMA pioneer Kedzie looks back

Looking back, my journey in MMA has been me tripping every two feet but I wouldn't trade places with Ronda Rousey. I wouldn't trade places with Meisha Tate or

Melissa Segura | Jul 25, 2013

About to make her UFC debut, women's MMA pioneer Kedzie looks back /

Julie Kedzie will make her UFC debut on Saturday against Germaine de Randamie. — Julie Kedzie will make her UFC debut on Saturday against Germaine de Randamie :: Josh Hedges/Forza LLC via Getty Images

Looking back, my journey in MMA has been me tripping every two feet but I wouldn't trade places with Ronda Rousey. I wouldn't trade places with Meisha Tate or any of these people who are the famous ones. I like tripping over my own feet. It's made me happy and it's made it more worth it. You can look at the way someone else achieved it, but it's not their way, it's your way. It's your own journey. And mine, on Saturday, will take me down a road that is both new and familiar. We might even take Washington's 405 highway to get to the show.

Published Jul 25, 2013

MELISSA SEGURA

Staff Writer, Sports Illustrated Staff writer Melissa Segura made an immediate impression at Sports Illustrated. As an undergraduate intern in 2001, her reporting helped reveal that Danny Almonte, star of the Little League World Series, was 14, two years older than the maximum age allowed in Little League. Segura has since covered a range of sports for SI, from baseball to mixed martial arts, with a keen eye on how the games we play affect the lives we lead. In a Sept. 10, 2012, cover story titled, The Other Half of the Story, Segura chronicled the plight of NFL wives and girlfriends caring for brain-injured players. In 2009 she broke the story that MLB had discovered that Washington Nationals prospect Esmailyn Gonzalez, who had been signed to a team-record $1.4 million bonus in 2006, was really Carlos Alvarez and he was four years older than he had claimed to be. Segura graduated with honors from Santa Clara University in 2001 with a B.A. in Spanish studies and communications (with an emphasis in journalism). In 2011, she studied immigration issues as a New York Times fellow at UC-Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Before joining SI full-time in 2002, she worked for The Santa Fe New Mexican and covered high school sports for The Record (Bergen County, N.J.). Segura says Gary Smith is the SI staffer she would most want to trade places with for a day. "While most noted for his writing style, having worked alongside Gary, I've come to realize he is an even more brilliant reporter than he is a writer."