University of Minnesota veterinary medicine student, Megan Brody made her kickboxing debut Friday February 15th at the Hinckley Grand Casino. Brody won her three round bout by judges decision against 2007 IKF World Classic Tournament Champion, Brittany Laamanen from Ontario, Canada. Although Brody appeared the less experienced fighter on paper coming into the fight, she looked liked a veteran in the ring winning all three rounds on the judges scorecards and bloodying her opponent in the final round.

Because Laamanen is the reigning IKF Tournament Champion, she is currently ranked #1 in North America by the International Kickboxing Federation and was scheduled for a title fight in May, but this loss to Megan Brody may have hurt that title fight.

Brody began training at the Cellar Kickboxing Gym in New Brighton in 2006 shortly after beginning her graduate program at the University of Minnesota, College of Veterinary Medicine. The Cellar Kickboxing Gym has many female kickboxing students, but because so many of them are training for recreation and/or fitness and have no interest in competing, Megan does almost all of her training with males who sometimes outweigh her by 30-60 lbs. Her intense training is paying dividends in competition. Brody is also learning Mixed Martial Arts at the Cellar (MMA is a sport that combines striking arts such as boxing and kickboxing with grappling arts like wrestling and jiu-jitsu). After grappling day after day with the guys, when she competed in her first grappling competition last December she tore threw her same size female competitors, earning a first place finish at the Submission Hunt Tournament.

Next up for Megan could be her second kickboxing fight at an event in Eau Claire, WI in May and hopefully she’ll be ready to compete at the U.S. Open Kickboxing tournament this summer in Chicago, IL.

Aaron Palleson also fought for the Cellar Friday evening against veteran Adam Patneaude. Palleson stepped up on two days notice to fight in place of Mitch Whiley and gave an awesome performance, but lost a close judges decision. It was Aaron’s full contact debut against a seasoned veteran, but he showed that he’s got a bright future in the sport of kickboxing.