Spoiling for a Fight

The MRI showed a notch in the spinal cord. A ruptured disc had taken a triangular bite, like the swing of an axe into a soon-to-be-felled tree. You need emergency cervical fusion, the doctor told Cindy Hales. One wrong move could make you a quadriplegic.

It was 2005, and Hales had just won the under-140 lb. weight class of the Pro Division at Grapplers Quest, a prestigious Brazilian jiujitsu (BJJ) tournament that draws competitors from around the globe. She tore through her bracket, winning her semifinal match in less than 30 seconds before taking the title in overtime.

Videos of Hales' matches show an aggressive, explosive athlete; her feet are in constant motion as she circles her opponents and tackles them to the mat. Then, in a tangle of limbs, she outmaneuvers them to reach a finishing move, an application of leverage that forces them to submit. It's reminiscent of those nature documentaries in which a predator seizes its prey with startling quickness, then slowly snuffs it out over the course of a drawn-out, spasmodic struggle. Watching the video, you'd never guess that Hales' arms and hands were numb during her matches, or that she was on the brink of paralysis. (She knew something was wrong going into the tournament, but deliberately put off the MRI until afterward, as she didn't want the results to prevent her from competing.)

Hales' nickname is "Sleeper," a nod both to the submission holds she uses to put opponents "to sleep" (to cause them to go limp and submit) and to the way her unimposing physical appearance leads others to underestimate her. She wears her hair in a shaggy mop-top, the sort you might find on one of the teenage boys she coaches when not competing herself. And with her deceptively muscular physique, excitable eyes, tattoos, toothy smile, raspy voice, dude-ish speech, and propensity to wear oversized sunglasses and give a thumbs-up to the nearest camera, she could pass for the sister of Jackass star Steve-O.

But perhaps the real reason she's been able to sneak up on people is the stunning speed with which she mastered BJJ—a testament to her natural talent and unnatural focus.

In 2002, Hales didn't know the difference between an armbar and a crowbar. (The former is a grappling armlock, the latter a tool for removing nails and breaking into houses.) Instead, she was busy climbing the corporate ladder at Starbucks, having gone from barista to call-center manager in less than a year. The same restless energy that helped her get promoted also caused her to find the work dull. Her husband at the time, John Ledington, suggested she visit Marcelo Alonso's BJJ gym down the street, and Hales obliged.

By 2005, Hales had earned wins at Grapplers Quest in Las Vegas and the Pan-American BJJ Tournament in Los Angeles, two of the world's most prestigious grappling events. By 2008, she had expanded her career to mixed martial arts (MMA), scoring a fight against perhaps the world's best female fighter, Megumi Fujii.

Brazilian jiujitsu is a highly technical sport, one in which novice viewers often have trouble discerning who is winning and losing matches, which are usually decided when one competitor puts another in a position to choose between acknowledging defeat or enduring fracture, dislocation, or unconsciousness. MMA adds punches, elbows, knees, and kicks to the mix. So it's no surprise that Hales' rise has come at a price. The endless hours on the mat have given her arthritis of the knees and spine, resulted in bone spurs on her vertebrae, and snapped her anterior cruciate ligament—which, as of a December 29 surgery, has been replaced by a tendon from her hamstring.

At 34 years old, with a busted-up body, Hales has lost a handful of matches that haunt her, and likely has only a few remaining years to compete. For now, she's rehabilitating her knee, designing workouts she can do on one leg, and, like a fearsome Santa, making and double-checking a list of the women she wants to take down when she returns.

Winning the Vegas and L.A. tournaments took Hales from regional up-and-comer to international powerhouse. But like her BJJ forebears, she felt the pressure to prove herself in a broader form of combat.

In 1993, a BJJ black belt named Rorion Gracie teamed up with an advertising executive named Art Davie to develop the Ultimate Fighting Championship, an eight-man tournament to determine the world's best fighter. Rorion is a member of the famous Gracie family, known for developing much of BJJ—including its own trademarked schools (in which Hales has always trained)—and for its "Gracie challenges," open invitations to practitioners of other martial arts to fight members of the Gracie family in anything-goes matches. The first UFC tournament was held in Denver and drew competitors of all sizes, disciplines, and nationalities, as well as a pay-per-view audience of more than 86,000. The winner: Royce Gracie, Rorion's 176-pound younger brother.

While subsequent UFC events were a commercial success, the gruesomeness of the spectacle—bloodied, bare-knuckled competitors delivering head-butts and groin strikes—sparked public outcry. Arizona Senator John McCain termed the sport "human cockfighting" and called for it to be banned, which led to lost pay-per-view contracts. To quiet critics and remain viable, the UFC put gloves on its fighters, tightened its rules, and instituted weight classes. Today it is a commercial juggernaut, with a net worth that Forbes estimates may be as high as $1 billion.