By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
For Kayleigh Wolfe, it is train, eat, sleep, wake-up, repeat. She is driven to succeed in the sport of MMA (mixed martial arts) and has a major fight coming up next month.
Wolfe, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, will face Sam Burke in a kickboxing catchweight bout at Appalachian Sucker Punch’s Showcase MMA 48 at the Simpsonville Activity Center in Simpsonville, S.C. on Saturday, Aug. 1. Tickets can be purchased for the event at: https://showcasemma.com/product/showcase-mma-48/
Kayleigh Wolfe, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, is shown after winning a gold medal at the New Breed Jui Jitsu Federation event in Asheville, N.C. in June 2026. She won in the women’s Gi cruiserweight division. (Photos contributed)
She started with boxing and caught the MMA bug soon thereafter.
“Me and my dad took a trip to Chicago and there was an MMA gym down there. I told him that would be cool and I think I could do it. He was like, ‘when we get back home, why don’t you just do it?’. So, I did.
I didn’t want to just do boxing. So, I started training wrestling, jiu jitsu, Muai Thai, kickboxing, and I kind of just took off. Then, after my second Tough Man fight, the American Top Team were interested in me and I was interested in them, so I just switched gyms.”
Wolfe noted, “I’ve played basketball and I’ve played other sports. But, whenever I started fighting, it all came naturally.
I train twice a day. I’m in Asheville almost 12, 15 hours out of my day training. My first class I take kickboxing. Then I do jiu jitsu and then I train MMA takedowns like double-legging somebody or single leg.”
Steve Montgomery, a UFC veteran and instructor at American Top Team Asheville, is one of Wolfe’s coaches. “Kayleigh is a hard-working student who stands by her word. If she says she’s going to do something, she does it. She trains two times a day, five days a week and never complains. If you correct her, she smiles and asks for more advice. If I could get even 10 more students who work as hard as her, I’d have a world-famous fight team. She is also tough as nails and won’t quit. Kayleigh is going to go as far as she wants in this sport with the way she’s working.”
Another coach Wolfe has is Bryan Barbarena, also a former UFC fighter. “Kayleigh is a coach’s dream. She asks what she needs to do and does it. She shows up for all the classes every day, comes to the extra fighter class, does all the strength and conditioning, works on diet and even listens on when to rest. She’s a prime example to all in the gym of what you need to be doing to make it in fighting. Off the mat is a great person and gets along with everyone. It has been a pleasure to be able to train Kayleigh and get to know her and I’m excited to follow her journey to the top. With her focus and determination, the sky is the limit.”
On her upcoming fight, Wolfe noted, “We can throw knees, we can do elbows. If I start clinching her up, I can start killing her with my knees. I do want to take her down, but I’m more of a standing fighter. If we end up on the ground, that’s fine. I’ll just try and do a ground-and-pound. But, this fight, I’m just going to try to kill her leg, just low-kick her every time – jab, one, two. The hooks work, but the straight punches beat every time. Because, I’ve done it in all my fights. We do have a huge plan, me and my coaches, for this fight.
After this, I want to fight for a title in MMA – it’ll be in December. I’m fighting in Charlotte – it’s called Fight For It – and that will be the start of professional fights. Right now, I’m undefeated. I’ve never been beaten in any of my fights and my coach loves that. And, I do jiu jitsu tournaments – they’re called New Breeds – and I did one of those like a month ago. I did pretty well. I went undefeated and I did win all gold in that one.”
Wolfe has won several Tough Man contests including the Roughest and Toughest Brawl held in March 2026.
Wolfe’s training isn’t just in the gym – it also involves lifestyle. “I haven’t had salt or sugar in two months. It sucks but it helps me lose weight. I have to stay a certain weight every month…all I eat is sweet potatoes and steak, but no flavor or anything. I haven’t had flavor in so long. I do miss that. I have to sleep like ten hours a day. I’m always recovering from injuries. I don’t really talk about it much but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been injured. I still train when I’m injured because all of my coaches have been to the UFC. I don’t complain to them.”
Prior to a fight, Wolfe said she experiences nerves, but those are short-lived. “I feel like I’m going to throw up. It’s scary, but a part of me feels excited. It’s weird because whenever I step into the ring or the cage, whatever it is, on the mat, it goes away. It’s like a before feeling, ‘oh, I’m about to do this’. Then when I step in, we just go. I don’t even touch gloves. We just go.
It’s combat sports. I do have good sportsmanship after the fight, but when we’re in the ring it’s on.”
When asked about her hopes and dreams for the sport, Wolfe commented, “I want to be a professional fighter…if I can go to the UFC that’d be fine. I’d love that. I really want to. I don’t think it’s too far-fetched of an idea. I’m going to do it. I’m striving for it.
Sometimes I doubt myself and I think I need to stop that – just being in my head so much, overthinking. I’m just hard on myself.”
Wolfe loves the sport and has the following advice for anyone thinking of trying it out. “I would tell them to make sure it’s something that you really want to do because I’ve seen people walk into the gym and tell my coach, ‘I want to be a fighter, I want to be a fighter’ but then when we really step on the mat there’s non-fighters and there’s fighters. You can go to a gym and train, that’s fine. But, if you’re fighting at the intensity of, ‘yeah I’ve got a fight next week’…when we go into a class we really would fight. We don’t train and we don’t drill – we throw down. I’ve seen people walk in there and I’ve seen them walk out crying because it’s something they can’t handle.
Either you’re in or you’re not. I haven’t stopped training a day since I started. It’s a nonstop thing for me.”
