The problem was my shoes. I’m five ten, and as you’d expect with a woman my height, I have quite large feet. In casual shoes I wear a women’s size ten, which is close to the size of an average man’s foot. That’s not too bad when you consider that I’m taller than the average man as well, but for some reason fashion designers and runway reps think that they can get away with being lazy and bringing nothing but size eight shoes. Eights are good for some, mostly the pinup girls who don’t do the runway, but for us tall girls . . . painful. Pure pain.
Still, I was a professional, and I made sure to keep my face as happy as possible as I jammed my feet into the undersized shoes. I couldn’t knock the pay—I was getting fifty thousand dollars for two days’ work. It was a unique opportunity. The UFC was having an ‘all big men’ event, with every fight being either light heavyweights or heavyweights. But that presented a lot of problems, the main being that most of the fighters were giants. Seriously, most of the light heavyweight and heavyweight fighters were six-three to six-eight, so to not make them look like NBA-style freaks, the UFC wanted the models for this press event to be tall as well. The only normal UFC girl in attendance was Arianny, who I got to meet for the first time. She was pretty nice, a lot nicer than I thought she would be. She gave us a few pointers on how to interact with the fighters and gave me and the other girls working the party the rundown on the schedule of the evening.
Still, regardless of how nice Arianny was, the UFC’s marketing deal with Reebok meant I was wearing brand-new, out-of-the-box, black leather, size eight tennis shoes. I‘d quickly ditched my socks to gain me a little bit of wiggle room, but still, an hour into the two-hour event, my feet were screaming at me. I‘d lost feeling in my little toes, however, so I was at least holding out hope that by the end of the event I‘d have numbed up the rest of the way.
While there were certain various photo ops, video blurbs, and other things that I had to do, my primary job for the night was to mingle at the pool party, held two nights before the main event, which was taking place in Los Angeles. I didn‘t even need to work the actual Pay Per View, as the UFC wanted more of their name-brand girls to do the actual card holding for the event. I would do the pool party and the weigh-ins the next day and walk out with a nice paycheck in my bank account, supposedly more than a lot of the fighters earned, surprisingly enough.
“Hey, how‘re you holding up?” one of the fighters, a heavyweight who was fighting on the undercard, asked. We‘d chatted at the press conference earlier in the day, where he‘d been accompanied by his wife and two kids. He was a total family man and looked a bit embarrassed to be at this press event slash pool party. It obviously catered to the single male demographic the UFC was aiming for. I could understand his feelings. I’m not one for this sort of action on my own either. I’d rather spend my time by myself or with the few people that were allowed into my life. It’s not that I’m arrogant, I just don’t feel comfortable hanging out with a bunch of strangers.
“I’m doing okay,” I said, still giving my best smile. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s weigh-in, though. It’s going to be my first.”
“Well, enjoy it, it’s a lot less stressful than the fight cards full of the little guys,” he replied. He looked around the party, pointing out the one fight that was at a lighter weight, two guys who were fighting at one hundred and eighty-five pounds for the number one contendership. “They look and act like rabid zombies during these events, they’re so drained from cutting weight. Half of us are big boys, we don’t have to cut weight at all. All I need to do is eat clean and I drop below the two seventy weight limit.”
I nodded in understanding on both of his points. The man was a giant, easily six foot six, not an ounce of fat on his body. On the other hand, like any model who had to do photo shoots in swimwear and lingerie, I knew the temporary advantages of wringing out some water from under my skin right before going in front of the camera. I guessed the same idea applied to the fighters who were mostly worried about making a weight limit. “So how’s your weight looking?”
“I did well this camp,” he replied casually, taking a drink from his flute of what looked like champagne. “This morning I was an easy two sixty, so I’ll be able to relax tonight and make weight just fine. It’s actually easier on my body than when I was in college and playing football. Then we had to try and pack on weight as well as stay high-impact athletes.”
“Never had that problem,” I replied, chuckling. “My father was always worried about me keeping weight on. Just the way my metabolism was back in my childhood years, I guess.”
“And now?” the fighter asked, curious. “What does he think of your modeling?”
I shook my head sadly. “My father died years ago. I hadn’t seen him in years, so I doubt he ever got a chance to see me do any modeling at all.”