Gisborne fighter to compete in Australian ‘Infliction’ series

Gisborne martial artist Ishtar Mackey-Huriwai (centre) at the Rangataua o Aotearoa training rooms with mother Melissa Mackey-Huriwai (left) and grandfather Taka Mackey. Ishtar is scheduled to fight Jordan Bell, aka Combat Barbie, in one of the bouts in Infliction Fight Series #37 at the Royal Pines Resort on the Gold Coast, Australia, tonight. Photo / Paul Rickard

Tairāwhiti martial arts athlete Ishtar Mackey-Huriwai will fight in the Infliction Fight Series at the Royal Pines Resort on the Gold Coast in Australia tonight.

Her opponent is Jordan Bell, an experienced Muay Thai professional fighter who has been dubbed “Combat Barbie” and is the mother of a toddler.

Mackey-Huriwai was New Zealand’s only representative in the demonstration sport of Muay Thai at the Paris Olympics last year.

In May this year she was part of an 11-strong New Zealand team competing at the 7th International & Thai Martial Arts Games in Bangkok.

Mackey-Huriwai won gold in pro-am Muay Thai against a Thai opponent and silver in K1 kickboxing against an American opponent in the senior 60kg division.

Her opponent in Australia tonight is a professional Muay Thai fighter who trains at the Skadi Performance gym on the Gold Coast.

Bell’s experience includes being part of a 2023 four-woman contest in which the fighters had to compete in two fights on the same night, with $10,000 at stake.

Mackey-Huriwai, 18, is the daughter of Mike Huriwai and Melissa Mackey-Huriwai, and is coached by her mother.

When she began her martial arts journey – she had her first competitive fight when she was 7 – Melissa Mackey-Huriwai’s father Taka Mackey was her coach.

Mackey was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2020 for services to martial arts and Māori. He founded Gisborne’s Rangataua o Aotearoa martial arts club in 1977.

The name, often shortened to RoA, means “a group of warriors from New Zealand”. It is instructed in te reo Māori and incorporates kickboxing and Muay Thai.

Kickboxing differs from Muay Thai in that it forbids the use of elbows. Practitioners of Muay Thai, or Thai kickboxing, use their fists, elbows, shins and knees.

Ishtar Mackey-Huriwai, of Ngāti Porou, spent 2023 recovering from surgery to her left shoulder and regaining fitness.

At the Olympics last year she fought in the women’s under-23, under-60kg division.

Her training routine is twice a day, every day, all year round. The promotional material for her fight tonight predicts big things ... “Two elite warriors. One epic fight that could steal the whole show”.