KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Maria Jose Favela returned to the cage Friday in Kansas City for Invicta FC 57.
The bantamweight fighter has already been through the fight of her life battling cancer after doctors gave her a 50% chance to live.
Her return bout lasted just 57 seconds, but Favela proved triumph is sometimes just getting up off the mat.
Being a professional MMA fighter takes talent and dedication. But it would be hard for anyone to match the drive of the 31-year-old Favela. The Mexican-born fighter, who trains in Las Vegas, was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on July 4, 2023.
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That date is now tattooed above a scar on her chest.
“The first question I made to the doctors along with if I was going to survive or not was am I going to be able to get into the cage,” Favela said in an interview with FOX4 prior to Friday night’s bout.
Doctors first thought Favela had COVID-19 forcing her to pull out of a scheduled Invicta fight with a week’s notice.
“I was talking with my coach. I was telling him I feel horrible. I can’t breathe, my oxygen level is so low, I have fevers all the time, I’m coughing all the time,” Favela said.
With the cancer surrounding her heart, lungs and liver, the prognosis wasn’t good.
“The doctor said if you don’t receive a treatment in 15 days you are going to be in a crisis again and we are fighting against time,” she explained.
Under Mexican government-funded healthcare, she says she was told she couldn’t get an appointment to begin treatment for three months.
“My mom and I was thinking what are we going to do? I was like thinking I’m going to die because I’m poor,” the fighter with a pro record of 3 wins and 2 losses said.
UFC fighter Cynthia Cavillo started a GoFundMe and Favela learned how many people were in her corner like UFC champion Amanda Nunes and UFC President Dana White, who donated $10,000.
“I was getting excited because of the amount of money, but also it was ok, Dana White now knows who I am, knows my name. So I’m going to make it,” Favela said.
The fighter went 12 rounds of chemotherapy and now has another tattoo, the date she was declared cancer-free. Invicta FC’s Founder and CEO would then go through a breast cancer battle herself. Shannon Knapp, President of Invicta Fighting Championships, says she’s doing well now.
“I think looking over and seeing the struggles she went through and the things she went through was very inspiring to me and motivating to get up and fight that fight,” Knapp said.
The training that went with it to make it to Friday’s bout wasn’t an easy task either.
“It was hard because I was comparing myself and I was crying all the time. I was feeling weak,” Favela described of her eight months since putting back on the gloves and training with UFC fighters.
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But less than a year after the most important battle of her life, Favela was back in the cage saying she was ready for anything life or her opponent throws at her.
“If she punches me or puts me in an uncomfortable position, man I was there 6 months. For a straight 6 months, I was in pain all the time. There were people putting needles in my body, surgery behind surgery, chemicals in my body. So I can deal with a situation that gets me uncomfortable,” a confident Favela said before the fight.
She turned out to not be ready for a Maria Djukic punch which dropped Favela in the first round with the fight being stopped after 57 seconds.
Djukic acknowledged after the fight sometimes there are bigger battles than those fought in the cage and in this instance, the victory is in the competition.
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