DONNA CHELI: "I PREPARED A BIG 'SURPRISE' FOR ANNA RUDENKO"

 

On February 16, the Moldovan promotion EAGLES FC will hold the eleventh tournament in the capital of Moldova – Chisinau. The tournament itself includes two championship bouts – featherweight and heavyweight – as well as a super-fight with the participation of lightweight champion Ivan Zhvirblia.

In addition, many interesting fights will take place at the tournament, one of which is the women’s strawweight bout between the rising star of the European scene Donna Cheli (3-0) and Russian athlete Anna Rudenko (4-2). 19-year-old Moldovan native Donna Cheli is the main female face of the EAGLES FC promotion and this Saturday she is ready to prove it once again.

“There’s not much time left before the fight,” – Donna said to ‘HARCORD’. “I can not wait to go out to the cage and get  what rightfully belongs to me.”

Donna Cheli’s rival Anna Rudenko scored the last three victories via armbar submission – this factor became significant in preparation of Donna for the coming fight. Cheli says that Rudenko will not be able to take her down, noting that “a surprise awaits her” in this aspect of the fight.

“During this training camp, we worked a lot on escaping from armbar submission and protecting from the triangle choke. Anna prefers to take her opponents down, so we worked on takedown defense. I can say that I will not let her do it in a fight, because I prepared some big surprises for Anna,”

At the moment, Donna has already scored three consecutive victories, each of which she won in the first round under the auspices of the EAGLES FC promotion.

In February last year, she squared off against Daniela Alexandra Bragaru, beating her via a technical knockout in 66 seconds. Three months later, Cheli held her second fight against Elena Andruschenko, submitting her via triangle choke and then returned to the cage in November at the EAGLES FC 10 tournament, having scored the most impressive victory in her career. Cheli dealt with Evgenia Belova in less than a minute, having choked her out on 51 seconds of the first round.

Donna believes that if she adds another inside-the-victory to her already impressive series of victories, the ‘EFC‘ promotion may introduce a championship belt in her weight class and arrange a vacant championship bout with her participation.

“Step by step, we are moving towards our goal. Of course, like any other fighter, I want to become a champion in my division, especially now there are not so many girls involved in this sport, and I‘m the only female professional fighter in Moldova so far. I think that if I show a spectacular fight and score a beautiful victory, Dorin Mikhailovich (President of the FEA Federation and founder of EAGLES FC) will give me that opportunity and my next fight will be for the championship title,”

The professional debut of Donna Cheli took place when she was only 18 years old. According to the athlete, before she could not even imagine that she would perform in the cage. Her perception of sports was changed by her coach Eduard Kesya.

“To be honest, I never thought that I would fight in MMA. Sometimes I even watched fights on TV and thought: ”Why do these girls beat each other? What’s the point?” But life turned so that I met my trainer Eduard Kesya who completely changed my perception of this tough sport. I fell in love with MMA and now I can’t imagine my life without this sport,”

If you know about Donna’s background, it is not surprising that she has got solid ground game skills because, before her professional debut in MMA, the girl was engaged in sambo and judo, where she also achieved some success.

“Before I started doing MMA I practiced sambo and judo with my first coach, Uzun Petr Nikolayevich. He gave me a lot of skills, introduced me to sports. I showed pretty good results, I was a Moldova champion, performed at the European Championship.

Of course, sooner or later everything in life changes and sometimes you have to give up something. I decided that it would be better and now I am in MMA, now I have other goals in life, now I have a wonderful team that supports me, spends every day with me in the gym, invests their time and energy on me. I have a wonderful coach who, when preparing for a fight, does not leave me for a minute without his attention, for what I am very grateful to him because nothing would have happened without him. I would also like to thank the president of the fighting club ‘Lion’, Octavian Orheianu, and the president of the federation, Dorin Damir, for the opportunities given to me,”

Today, women’s fights are an integral part of mixed martial arts. Girls go to the same level of popularity with male fighters and attract to their fights no less attention. Donna also watches what is happening in the women’s MMA in the largest promotions. Despite the fact that she admires many fighters who perform at the highest level, she noted that she is not trying to imitate or copy someone’s style.

“I am very pleased that girls are attracted to this sport. I keep my eyes on a lot of girls in various organizations, there are a lot of promising fighters out there. I follow girls in the UFC, where there are a lot of awesome athletes. I can’t say that I look up to someone, because each person is different and no one can be repeated. You have to be yourself first. Of the UFC fighters, I like Rachael Ostovich so that she can combine both being a beautiful girl and a good fighter who shows spectacular fights,”

Donna Cheli’s main goal is signing a contract with the UFC.

“Root for me and I will continue to delight you with my victories. I hope that in the future I will become an idol for someone. I really hope that soon the audience will watch my fights already in the UFC. I do not even hope, but I am sure that it will happen because this is my goal and nothing will stop me on the way of achieving it,”

Recall that in the main event of the ‘EAGLES FC 11’ tournament, Valeriu Mircea meets with Andrei Barbarosa for the vacant featherweight championship title, while EFC lightweight champion Ivan Zhvirblia will hold a super fight against Italy’s own Davide Gregorio La Torre. Plus, EFC interim heavyweight champion Alexander Romanov will hold a title defense against the Brazilian fighter Sergio Freitas.