Athletes
Breaking Barriers
Fatima Kline | Destined For Greatness
Ascending Strawweight Talks Impressive 2025, Divisional Makeup As She Awaits 2026 Debut
If you’re a fan of the UFC, you’re becoming familiar with the talents of Fatima Kline, the strawweight rising star who posted three wins last year to claim a spot in the Top 15 and who seems ticketed for greatness inside the Octagon.
Diehards were aware of Kline before she touched down in the UFC, back when the New York native was competing as a grappler and working her way to “Double Champ” status under the Cage Fury Fighting Championships banner. Others took note of “The Archangel” when she was inked to compete on Season 8 of Dana White’s Contender Series, where she was initially scheduled to face fellow ranked strawweight Alexia Thainara in what now feels destined to be a matchup between title contenders in the 115-pound weight class.
That fight never came to fruition, as days after signing that contract, Kline was tabbed to replace Viviane Araujo in a clash with Canadian Jasmine Jasudavicius up a weight class as part of the UFC’s return to Denver in 2024. Though she landed on the wrong side of the results, her efforts prompted everyone to sit up and take notice, and the skilled 25-year-old has been making waves ever since.
“I guess in a way it’s a little different than I thought, and from my debut to now, it’s been a total unexpected journey, which I really love,” Kline told Maddyn Johnstone-Thomas earlier this month in Las Vegas, discussing her first 18 months on the roster and her success since returning to her natural weight class. “I feel like you create such a plan for your life, and then you realize that God has a better plan for you. I feel like I’m learning that, realizing that, and now I’m just happy with whoever they put in front of me.
“I feel like since my debut, I’m just trying to finish everyone ahead of me,” she added. “I think with the finishes I have, it’s rocketed me to this point. I think I belong in the Top 3, Top 5, and I know I’m gonna be the champ someday, and basically these people are just in the way of that.”
Some will surely bristle at Kline’s confident statement, but it’s hard to argue with the results thus far.
After giving a good account of herself against Jasudavicius, she made her strawweight debut last January, finishing Viktoriia Dudakova with elbows from half guard late in the second round. Six months later, Kline registered a third-round knockout win over Melissa Martinez, felling her with a head kick in a bout where the grappler controlled the entire contest with her striking.
And then in November, she joined her training partner and best friend Erin Blanchfield on the card at Madison Square Garden in New York, where she scored a unanimous decision win over Angela Hill to run her winning streak to three and claim a place in the Top 15 for the first time.
“Madison Square Garden was like, if I were to put it into words, I feel like there really are no words to describe it,” Kline said with a chuckle. “I’ve been in New York my whole life — born, raised; I still live in New York —and I never thought I’d get an opportunity like that that early, one, against somebody ranked and two, in my home state.
“It was exactly what I was looking for after my July fight, and I’m just so grateful that I was able to prove I do belong in the Top 15 and I do belong representing my home state. And to be able to do it the way I did it, it’s amazing.”
Kline was the more effective of the two throughout the contest and closed things out by landing big shots on Hill in the waning moments of the bout, showing her tenacity and drive while fighting through to the final bell.
The victory put the rising star in a position to continue fighting forward in the division, and four months after getting the better of Hill, she’s chomping at the bit to get back into the Octagon.
“Like 3,000 —it’s an astronomical number!” Kline said in response to a “scale of 1-10” inquiry about how much she’s itching to get back to action. “I feel so bad for my manager —I keep on contacting him like, ‘Hey, I’m ready.’ I took my time off, and I’ve been able to really spend time perfecting my craft these last couple months, learn so much and I think that’s the beauty of what we do. The (chances to learn) are unmatched compared to any other sport, and so I’m really hoping to hear something for May, June, July.”
But Kline isn’t one to not have her own ideas about how things could line up going forward, both in the division and for herself.
“Ironically, I did have my eye on Gillian (Robertson) — we were supposed to have a grappling match like years ago, and that fell through,” she said of the surging contender. “I think she’s such a fun match because she’s really good at jiu-jitsu. I know Amanda Ribas doesn’t have a fight coming up, she’s ahead of me, and she could crack me into the Top 10, so we’ll see about that.
“I’d love to see Gillian get that matchup,” she added, forecasting the next championship pairing. “I feel like her versus Mackenzie is a fight a lot of people would love to see, and I’m personally looking to see it, so I’m hoping that unless they give Weili (the fight with) Mackenzie Dern, that Mackenzie fights (Gillian).
“There are a couple girls that are already booked —I know Tabatha Ricci is fighting, I know Loopy (Godinez) is fighting Tatiana (Suarez); that’s a great fight, and I’m super-curious to see who wins that, and I’m just super-curious to see who I have next.”
For the ambitious and driven New Yorker, the name ultimately doesn’t matter.
“I’m here, I’m ready, and I’ll fight anybody ahead of me.”
THREE THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT FATIMA KLINE
While fight fans are well aware of Kline’s skills, successes, and upside inside the Octagon, we took the opportunity earlier in the month to ask the up-and-coming strawweight to identify a couple of things fans might not know about her, and just as she’s done since returning to her natural weight class last year, the 11th-ranked Kline absolutely crushed the assignment.
Soccer Skills: I was in my basement playing with my nephews, and I feel like playing with babies or children — anybody that is younger than you —brings out some talents you didn’t know were there.
“I used to be a soccer player, and I was playing soccer with them, so I realized I could still dribble the ball, so I got a little bit of Cristiano Ronaldo in me, got a little bit of soccer feet going on; I think that’s something people might not know about me.
Kline Rows Crew: I know how to row a boat! I used to do crew, and people think that’s weird. It’s like, “What’s crew?” and it’s like, ‘You row a boat.’
“‘Oh, kayaking?”
It’s not kayaking. You get one oar, there’s four people, eight people with you, so that’s something I would really like to continue to do, maybe after I retire. I’d like to buy a little boat; a one-, two-seater. I used to do it with my sister, so I’d like to just buy a boat and let that be my hobby, just rowing down a river for fun.
Great with Numbers, But Not Geometry: I’m really good with memorizing things, memorizing numbers. Not so much names, but for some reason, our gate to get into our house, Erin forgot it, and two hours later, I was like, “It’s blah blah blah blah,” and she just looked at me like, “How do you still know that?”
I have no idea. I feel like I've known my phone number since I was 16. I know all my family’s phone numbers. I’m not smart, but numbers make me smart.
I failed geometry. I went to summer school! That’s something people don’t know. I tend not to tell people — I feel like I start talking and I’m like, “Oh, I went to summer school.” I don’t think anybody knows that.
Geometry put me in summer school. It’s a little embarrassing, but I use it as a token of pride now because here I am, and I still don’t need geometry. I wasted a summer to learn about a-squared, b-squared, and c-squared and here I am not needing any of it.
Maddyn Johnstone-Thomas contributed to this story