This coming Valentine's Day (2/14/08), the world's premier woman's MMA promotion, SMACKGIRL, will hold the opening round of their 115lb 8-woman tournament in Tokyo and 2 Northwest ladies will be taking part in the hopes of advancing to the next round: Lisa Ward and Cindy Hales. Lisa is the better known of the two in the MMA world holding a 10-3 professional record and the 115lb Fatal Femmes Championship belt which she won in 2007. Cindy on the other hand, has had only 1 amateur and 1 pro MMA fight three years apart, and in this opening round she is going up against the undefeated Megumi "Mega Megu" Fujii - the Japanese fighter that most consider to be the very best in the world at 115lbs and who is coached by Josh Barnett.

However, Cindy is no stranger to competition with 1st place wins in Brazilian Jiu-jistu at the US Opens and the Pan-Ams in 2003 and 2005, and a 1st place win in No-gi at Grappler's Quest in 2005. Injuries sidelined her in 2006 but she picked up training again in 2007 and competed in the prestigious Abu Dhabi tournament in May and then at the end of the year took home her first pro MMA victory at Fatal Femmes.

She is phenomenal on the ground and at the end of 2006 was awarded her Black Belt by Gracie Barra's Rodrigo Lopes. She trains with the well respected Eric "The Demon" Dahlberg at his school in Tukwila (ringdemon.com) and is looking to surprise the MMA world with a victory over Fujii on Thursday. NWFS had a chance to chat for a couple of minutes with Cindy the day before she left to Japan...

NWFS: So you're going over to Smackgirl and fighting Megumi...
Cindy Hales: Fighting Megumi, yep. I've been wanting to fight her for a long time and I'm real excited about it.

NWFS: What are your thoughts going into it?
Hales: Well, I've been training hard. She's one of the top girls at 115. I think I have a real good shot to take that title away from her. Basically, I'm going to try and stay out of her leg locks and just work my ground game. Been doing a lot of standup. I think I have a good strategy. We'll see if it works.

NWFS: And this is a tournament format...
Hales: Yes, its an 8 girl tournament and this is the quarterfinals. If I win, I'll go back in April for the semifinals, and then in June are the finals.

NWFS: Is this your first time to Japan?
Hales: Yes. I'm super-excited to go to Japan. I've always wanted to go. This is a great opportunity to go and hang out and take a little vacation and meet a bunch of girls and I get to fight too so I'm real excited.

NWFS: How long have you been fighting MMA?
Hales: I had an amateur fight about three years ago and then I took some time off and then I had my pro debut in November where I fought Shawn Tamaribuchi at Fatal Femmes and I won with a triangle in that... an armbar triangle.

I'm ready to get going with all the MMA.

NWFS: Why Fighting? Whats your motivation in doing what youre doing?
Hales: I love competing. I started in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and did most of the major tournaments here in the US with that and then branched off to No-gi. I just like to compete and I like to train, and I like the whole lifestyle that goes around it. It keeps me out of trouble. Its real fun and I get to meet a lot of cool people.

NWFS: Tell us about your trainer.
Hales: My trainer is Eric Dahlberg. I've been with him for a long time. We both came up under Marcelo Alonso and we do mostly no-gi.

NWFS: Well thank you for your time and good luck in Japan!
Hales: Thank you.