UFC commentator and former MMA fighter Laura Sanko was just promoted to black belt in BJJ by Paul Kolenda after spending 19 years training in the sport. Although most MMA fans will be familiar with Sanko for her work on the microphone, she actually started as a fighter herself originally. She had a solid career as an amateur, amassing a 4-1 record from 2010 to 2012 that included a pair of wins on Titan FC shows before becoming a professional. That stage of her career was cut very short though, as she won her debut at Invicta FC 4 but retired afterward when she discovered that she was pregnant.
Sanko was involved in the early days of women’s MMA as a mainstream sport, competing around the time that Ronda Rousey was just starting her legendary UFC run. She also competed in the atomweight division and even though the UFC has massively increased the number of opportunities available for women since then, they actually still don’t have an atomweight division. By making it to Invicta FC, Sanko was already competing at the highest level of the sport for her weight class in her very first professional fight and even today the only bigger stage than there would be at ONE Championship.
Sanko eventually decided to focus on her broadcast career instead and she has become a popular figure in the MMA world through that instead. She became the first female commentator to work on Dana White’s Contender Series during season 5 in 2021 and it was only a matter of time before she broke into the main show. That moment came in 2023 when she served as part of the broadcast team for UFC Vegas 68, becoming the second woman to ever do so and the first in over three decades. The only other woman to do so was Kathy Long all the way back at UFC 1.
Laura Sanko announced the news that she had been promoted to black belt in BJJ in a recent post to her official Instagram account:
