Sydney Hlebik

Sydney Hlebik played soccer for twelve years, walked away from it in high school, and moved to Dallas alone at eighteen to fight.

Brad Banyas hosted her episode of Salty's Fight Talk, sitting in for Cason, who was out that week because his wife had just had a baby girl. Brad said he had been reading up on her journey and ran the hour as an athlete spotlight. She had one MMA fight behind her at that point and was trying to get another booked for November to keep the momentum. By the end SALTYmf had offered to sponsor her and follow the rest of it.

She was an athlete long before she was a fighter. Gymnastics as a small child, then soccer, and a father who came home from work as an Army drill sergeant and showed her and her little brother an arm bar or some odd choke. Her junior year she asked her mother if she could join the high school girls wrestling team, got private lessons, and made varsity by training hard enough to catch teammates who had years on her. Her stepdad wanted her able to defend herself, took her to 10th Planet San Antonio for jiu jitsu, and started holding pads for her in the garage. Striking is what she loves. Most of her week goes to grappling anyway, because that is the side an opponent will go looking for.

College did not take. The soccer scholarships never came and her parents could not afford to send her to university, so she started community college online and hated the first semester of it. Her parents gave her the choice, school or training, because training wants all of your time. She was eighteen. Her stepdad worked a family connection to the head coach at Fortis, who agreed to look after her and promised her nothing beyond that. She lined up a job on Indeed before she arrived, found an apartment ten minutes from the gym, and worked fifteen and sixteen hour days that whole summer to save ten thousand dollars. Her parents drove her up, unloaded her and left. She still works a job now, because bills do not stop for a fight camp.

She spars with Macy Chiasson and Sam Hughes, who are both a level above her, and she took a nosebleed in her own fight without reacting to it because Sam had already given her one in the gym. Her first sponsor was Redefine Violence, who backed her when she had no skill and footage she now calls cringy, and she says she is loyal to them until the end. Her read on whether she is ready is simple. If she is cool as a cucumber dancing to her music, she is good.