Cheryl Glenn

You’ve probably seen my posts for Devon Spirit Wolf and Constance Cable and are wondering why I have a fascination with female MMA referees. You’re already wondering if Cheryl Glenn will join the club and you’d be right in thinking so. Referees and females have something in common: they don’t get the respect and thanks they deserve for everything they do. If you’re a referee, you get criticized for every disagreeable decision you make. If you’re a woman, well, they’ll just call you things like “bitch” and “whore” while denying you the right to a safe abortion. I’d like to think of myself as someone who favors the underdogs of society.

Cheryl Glenn is somebody who is an underdog in a lot of ways. Aside from being a female MMA referee who only occasionally makes “bad” calls, she’s also in her early 50’s. She’s heard every sexist and ageist comment in the book. Since she actually is a grandmother, the sexist and ageist jokes come naturally for the ignorant masses. Mixed-martial arts is mostly watched by conservative males with a lot of energy and testosterone. If you think someone like Kim Winslow has a hard enough time being a female referee, then you can understand the plight of the fictional Cheryl Glenn as well. “Make me a sandwich, grandma!” Lovely. Just lovely.

But Mrs. Glenn isn’t one to back down from intimidation so easily. Aside from being a martial artist herself of many decades, she’s also been known to take away the ring announcer’s microphone and give the bigoted audience a piece of her mind.

Cheryl first made an appearance in a short story called “Dot Your Eyes”, where she was the referee for a lightweight main event between a gay fighter named Evan Rader and his homophobic opponent Heath Marks. Because Evan is openly gay, the audience thought it was funny to call him Evan Gay-der. Get it? Har-dee-har-har-har. My ribs are sore from forgetting to laugh. When Cheryl had her turn at the microphone, she told the audience if they didn’t stop chanting homophobic slurs, she was going to cancel the fight and declare it a No Contest due to audience distraction. They shut up pretty damn quickly after that.

Although “Dot Your Eyes” will never see the light of day due to its excessive vulgarity, there will be another time when Cheryl Glenn is used. When she has the microphone for another time, she’ll ask the lighting technicians to shine a spotlight on an certain audience member in the front row. She’ll give that audience member a speech similar to the one David Draiman from Disturbed gave at one of his concerts. It goes like this:

“Hi there! You obviously didn’t come here to watch the fights. You’ve been playing fucking videogames on your smart phone since the opening match. I’ll tell you what. Can you do me a favor? Because right now, to be honest, I can appreciate you not being a fan of the UFC. Hell, there are even times when the UFC pisses ME off. But right now, you’re being really disrespectful to the fighters who came here to perform for you. If you’d rather play videogames, then give up your seat to somebody who wants to watch the fights. So this is how this is going to work. If you want to be respectful, you can stay. If not, then security, if you see him take out his cell phone one more time, you have my permission to kick him the fuck out of here!”

It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, young or old, gay or straight: Cheryl Glenn doesn’t fear you. She may be a grandmother and she may be a woman herself, but she’ll still kick your ass if you cross her. It could be a well-placed kick between the legs. It could be a judo hip toss a la Ronda Rousey. It could be five fingers of death right to your glass jaw. If you’re really curious as to how much of a grumpy grandma Cheryl can be, push her limits. She’ll not only push back, she’ll push your ass over.

　

***POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“War doesn’t determine who is right, only who is left.”

-Bertrand Russell-