With a hulking black helicopter parked behind them and the Superstition Mountains in the background, the Rezdogs Jiu Jitsu team from the Wa:k San Xavier District on the Tohono O’odham Nation joined Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community member Rianna “Ona Bear” Tate in a circle and stacked their hands in the middle: O’odham cheering on O’odham. 

“One, two, three, skoden!”

They were at an airplane hangar at Falcon Field in Mesa for the Spartan Invitational 19 caged submission grappling super fight event on Sept. 20, organized by Spartan Nation Combatives and Fitness.

In a submission grappling super fight setting, there are multiple matches on the bill but only one match per fighter. All submissions such as triangles, arm bars and rear naked chokes are legal and agreed upon by opponents.

The Rezdogs had their own wins, including those from Eric Havier and Cyrus Vance. But that night, the cheers that vibrated throughout the hangar felt the loudest for Tate, who trains out of Van Buren Jiu Jitsu in Chandler.

Tate’s match versus Alex Bollman was her first time competing in a cage. It’s something that she is going to get used to soon; by next summer, Tate plans to make her mixed martial arts (MMA) debut as an amateur.

“This was my first match as an 18-year-old adult and my debut as a purple belt,” said Tate.

With the hangar door open at sundown, a breeze swept through the thick, sweaty air, colliding with the brutal sounds of an ongoing match.

In the quiet before the storm, Tate wrapped her ankles in tape and listened to wise words from her father and coach, MMA fighter Joe “Tomahawk” Tate.

“Don’t rush it. Let her take it where it needs to be,” he said, standing by her side as she calmly paced in place in anticipation of her fight.

In a blink, Bollman and then Tate entered the cage, and they locked arms and eyes and began to grapple.

Tate secured the first takedown within seconds and forced Bollman to the fence before another takedown.

“Sapo! Sapo!” exclaimed Joe Tate from outside the cage. In this context, sapo means “good” in O’odham. He interchangeably communicates with his daughter in O’odham, Apache and Navajo mid-match.

After a reset, Rianna Tate took Bollman to the mat and applied pressure, dominating from on top.

That’s when Tate switched gears and went for the submission. After an armbar attempt from the top, Bollman submitted to a triangle choke into an armbar from the guard position.

Tate was 15 when she fought Bollman last.

“I was injured when I went against her [previously], and I had multiple submission attempts but just couldn’t finish it,” recalled Tate.

“And now I came out in the cage, and I thought, ‘I am going to get the finish. I am going to get it done. I am going to make her tap.’’

Tate’s father is immensely proud of his daughter.

“Rianna’s a wrestler,” he said.

“In this match, we had different plans. But she decided to go and tell me what she wanted to do. So, I said, ‘Okay, go then. Go out there and get it.’”

Tate now continues to focus on her main objective: to become “the first full-blooded Native to win the UFC.”