Sherdog Prospect Watch: Sammy Jo Luxton

When life hits you with adversity from every direction, the idea of fighting in a cage becomes less of a priority, but Sammy Jo Luxton managed to overcome second thoughts about continuing on with her mixed martial arts career.

Luxton endured a car accident, then had all her fighting equipment stolen during a vehicle break-in. Those two incidents were nothing compared to the pain that she had to process after losing her grandmother 10 days before a scheduled bout. Six weeks later, more bad news. Luxton received a call informing her that her father had to be placed in a medically induced coma after he suffered a heart attack. She traveled home to be by his side, only to encounter a health scare of her own. Luxton learned she needed to undergo emergency surgery and did so at the same hospital that was caring for her father. Accommodations were made to allow her to be by his side in his last moments of life.

Despite all the heartache, Luxton still planned to maker her Professional Fighters League debut under the PFL Europe banner. During a ramp up in her preparation, she discovered that an infection related to her surgery had spread to her ovaries and kidneys. It resulted in sepsis. Luxton knew 2024 was off the table, but the adversity only appeared to strengthen her resolve.

Luxton will make her long-awaited promotional debut when she meets Gemma Auld as part of the PFL Europe 1 undercard on Saturday at The SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. With all that she has overcome, it seems nothing can shake her.

“I am buzzing,” Luxton told Sherdog.com. “It’s been a long time coming, and I’m ready to just get my claws into it.”

The Manchester Top Team prospect admits she considered leaving her MMA career behind amid all the turmoil but decided she could not give up without a fight.

“When it was really fresh, I put my foot down and said this is me retiring,” Luxton said. “My friends, my family and my gym were all incredibly supportive. No one pushed me to do anything. I feel like once you have that fighting bug, you have it for life. That’s why so many people struggle to retire. I felt that bug went away but it slowly came back, and it resonated in my heart that this is what I’m meant to do. I’m a fighter through and through, physically and mentally. Looking back at it, fighting is easy. What I went through last year is the hard part.”

Luxton draws inspiration from countrywoman Dakota Ditcheva, who went from PFL Europe women’s flyweight champion in 2023 to outright PFL women’s flyweight champion a year later.

“Dakota was in the gym with me recently and told me to grab everything that I can,” she said. “I’m hoping there is a strawweight division opening up on the PFL global stage, and then I can go and do in that division what Dakota did in the flyweight.”

The 26-year-old Luxton credits the PFL with allowing her to be herself.

“That’s what I love about PFL,” she said. “They haven’t put me in a box or tried to make me someone I’m not. Hopefully, I can inspire young girls or older women who want to get into the sport. Even if you are a girly girl, this is a sport you can get into. You won’t be put in a box. You can even see it now. There are more girls entering the fighting scene because they don’t feel they’re being put into a box. I hope to see it continuing to grow, and one day, I’d like to be able to coach women in the sport.”

The latest stop on Luxton’s journey pits her against Auld, a 34-year-old Scot who shined in her first pro assignment in September. She put away Weronika Pietruszka with first-round punches at PFL 3.

“I actually haven’t ever seen one of Gemma’s fights,” Luxton said. “I’m not a fighter who goes on YouTube and tries to study their opponent. I feel if opponents look me up in my past, they won’t be getting what they’ve seen from my past fights. I don’t want to be looking at videos and think I’ll be getting hit with something, then get hit with something else. I’m just there for a scrap. She’s Scottish so she’s going to be hard as nails, and that’s what I’ve been waiting for—a full scrap so I can show everyone what I’m made of.”