Long Beach, CA — Combate Americas veteran Kyra Batara last competed in MMA in April 2019. However, ‘Mogwai’ was part of the Submissions on the Shore tournament this past weekend, aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California.
Batara took part in the strawweight tournament at the all-women’s jiu-jitsu event. She got the better of Lauren Sears, Raquel Torres, and Gina Megui before falling to teenage sensation Trinity Pun in the tournament final.
Her first fight, against Sears, hit overtime. It’s something her father prepared her for early in life. “For me especially for the over time rounds — my dad drilled me so hard my entire career, it was like bed time stories,” she told Cageside Press following the event. “It was like ‘hey dad bye I’m going to sleep, I’m going to brush my teeth right now.’ ‘Oh you’re brushing your teeth? Cool, right after meet me on the mat,'” was her father’s response.
“Over time rounds, every single night, over time rounds, armbar, spider web and then back mount, he would just drill me, drill me. I had a sequence of like ten submissions, where we would cycle through ten submissions in a row,” she continued. “He would make me do it with my eyes closed, three times in a row, right before I go to bed. When I get into overtime I’m like, ‘I can do this in my sleep, I do this right before bed, I ain’t worried about nothing.'”
Going into the semi-finals, the plan was to “go in there with confidence. I don’t care who is in front of me I don’t care what names are signed up for this tournament, like ‘I’m here I’m Kyra “Mogwai” Batara and I’m here to make a statement.” That she did, and while she came up short in the final, the semi-final match saw her defeat Gina Megui via Americana. Three wins in a night, not too shabby for Batara.
Watch the full interview with Kyra Batara from Submissions on the Shore above!
