The arm collector: Anita Karim and the rise of Pakistani women MMA

High in the Karakoram mountains, in the steep, unforgiving terrain of Karimabad, there’s very little room for mistakes. Life here is shaped by sharp climbs and heavier loads — firewood, fruit, responsibility — carried up and down narrow paths. Survival demands toughness. So when Anita Karim casually mentions that she once choked her father unconscious on their living room floor, she laughs it off like it’s no big deal.

Anita Karim retraces her journey into combat sports ahead of the country’s first ever professional women’s MMA fight. “Papa was stronger,” she says, smiling as she sits in a noisy Islamabad café. “But my technique was better. I just counted the seconds until he went out.”

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That moment, back in 2017, was more than a family story — it was proof. Proof that what she’d been training for worked. Today, Anita is Pakistan’s first female mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, and the face of a sport that, until recently, barely existed in the country. As she prepares for Pakistan’s first-ever professional women’s MMA title fight against Iran’s Parisa Shamsabadi, her journey mirrors something bigger — a shift in how Pakistani women are beginning to claim space, even in the cage.

Anita’s story starts in the Hunza Valley, a region shaped by both mountains and mindset. Unlike much of Pakistan’s conservative heartland, Hunza boasts a literacy rate of around 95 per cent. The Ismaili Shia community there, guided by the Aga Khan, has long emphasized education and independence for women.

“People assume a girl’s life is limited to marriage and children,” Anita says, her voice firm.

“I was lucky. My parents supported me when I chose a different path.”

That support came early. Her father, Nisar—a security guard and combat sports enthusiast—put her into taekwondo at just seven years old. Not to win medals, but to protect herself. He wanted her to be as capable as her three older brothers. Life in the mountains did the rest. Long climbs with sacks of apricots or firewood built a strength no gym could offer.

When Anita moved to Islamabad for university, the pull of fighting grew stronger. Her brothers — Uloomi, Ali, and Ehtisham — had built Fight Fortress, a gym that started as a patch of grass in a public park and slowly became the center of Pakistan’s MMA scene. Before long, Anita dropped out of university, traded textbooks for four-ounce gloves, and found herself as the only woman training on the mats.

As her skills sharpened, so did her reputation. In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu circles, she earned a chilling nickname: “The Arm Collector.”

“I had a girl in an Americana,” she recalls, eyes lighting up. “She wouldn’t tap. My brother told me to apply more pressure. I did—and her arm went limp.” When the opponent’s teammate stepped in for revenge, Anita finished her the same way. The name stuck.

But progress wasn’t smooth. In 2018, Anita made her professional debut in Singapore—and lost by submission to New Zealand’s Nyrene Crowley. In MMA, losses either break you or teach you. Anita chose to learn. She went home, trained relentlessly with male sparring partners, and seven months later dominated Indonesia’s Gita Suharsono to earn Pakistan’s first-ever international women’s MMA win.

That victory changed everything. When Anita returned to Islamabad, the airport was packed. Hundreds of people chanted her name, showering her with flower petals—scenes usually reserved for cricket stars. But the real celebration waited back home. In Hunza, traffic along the Karakoram Highway came to a standstill as people lined the road for miles.

“It felt like I’d changed how people saw women,” she says quietly. Her proudest moment wasn’t the crowds, though. It came at the college where her mother worked as a tea lady. Anita was invited on stage—and so was her mother. “My mother was honored because of me,” she says. “We sat there together. That meant everything.”

To reach the next level, Anita had to leave her comfort zone. She spent years training at Fairtex Gym in Pattaya, Thailand, under legendary coach Philip Wong. It was lonely, exhausting, and mentally brutal. “I taped my own injuries, cooked for myself, spent Eid alone,” she says. “Some nights I’d sit under a cold shower just to drown out the thoughts of quitting.”

Instead of running from fear, she broke it down piece by piece—like solving a puzzle. Slowly, the results followed. She won four of her next five fights and emerged as one of Asia’s most promising MMA prospects.

Still, life as a professional fighter in Pakistan is far from glamorous. There’s no government funding, no major sponsors. Cricket dominates the corporate world, leaving MMA fighters to fend for themselves. Supplements, special diets, recovery therapy—it all adds up.

To survive, Anita works as a personal trainer. She handles her own contracts, navigates visa restrictions tied to her Pakistani passport, and keeps grinding. “It’s expensive to live like this,” she says after a grueling training session at Fight Fortress. “But I don’t focus on the struggle.”

Now, as she prepares for a title fight, Anita carries more than her own ambition. She carries the hopes of countless young Pakistani women who see the cage not as violence, but as freedom.

Her marriage in 2024 to fellow trainer Hassan Gul Basti only strengthened her resolve. In a society where marriage often ends a woman’s athletic career, her in-laws have become her loudest supporters.

For Anita Karim, every fight is a return to where she started. Whether she’s drilling takedowns in a sweltering gym or walking into an international arena, her thoughts drift back to Mount Rakaposhi—the “Shining Wall” above Hunza. “At the end of every session, I play Burushaski music, close my eyes, and let it take me home,” she says.

The mountain girl who once carried firewood now carries the dreams of a nation’s daughters—and if her journey so far is any indication, she’s not letting go anytime soon.