Exclusive Q&A: Sammy-Jo Luxton ready to make PFL debut after near-death experience

26-year-old Sammy-Jo Luxton will make her PFL Europe debut in Belfast on 10 May. The Manchester Top Team fighter will be up against Gemma Auld. 

After a testing 2024, Sammy Jo-Luxton is determined to show that she is one of the best fighters in the world. DAZN News spoke to the Briton.

DAZN News: You're finally about to make your debut. After a complicated year, how have you come back?

Sammy Jo-Luxton: Last year, I basically could have a movie done. My grandma then passed away, and I fought a week later on FCC, and then six weeks later, my father passed away. Then I had a serious operation, an emergency one done at the same time that my father was actually in a coma. So we're in the same hospital.  So I got over that and I got back training a week after my operation, just to put my mind towards something them. But unknown to me, there was actually complications with this surgery, which ended up with me getting sepsis. So I ended up having sepsis. My temperature was reaching 42 degrees, which is basically the crucial point of life and death. So I was touching death doors, pulled through it. And from that point, I just took it as a sign from the universe that it wasn't my year, and I was to spend it with friends and family and just recoup. 

DN: Have the trials made you stronger?

SJL: Most definitely. So I've been through all of that. I would rather take a million kicks to the face than go through what I did last year, and I've come through it. So whatever happens mentally and physically in a fight, you cannot touch what I went through last year.

DN: What do you think of your opponent?

SJL:  I actually don't know much about her. I didn't even see her PFL debut. I'm completely going in blind, but I'm positive for myself. I know I'm fit, I'm faster, stronger than any girl. So whoever they put in front of me, I'm going to kill them.

DN: Any prediction?

SJL: Honestly, I'm a striker and now I'm a grappler. So I've had enough time. I feel like last year I was able to just knuckle down on my grappling. I feel like that's what the universe wanted for me, just to knuckle down on my grappling. And now I can fully say that I am an MMA fighter, not just a striker.

DN: Beyond this fight, what is your objective?

SJL: My objective is to hurt her. She's been calling me out. Obviously, last year I went for a lot and she was calling me out and her team was calling me out when all of these things were happening to me. So I think that's a bit of a cowardly move, I would say, to call a girl out while she's down. So she's going to reap the repercussions of that come May 10th.

DN: Are you planning to fight at strawweight or flyweight?

SJL: Both of them. I'll be calmed for both of them.

DN: Are you so interested next year with the World Tournament?

SJL: Yeah, definitely. Hopefully, the Flyweight Tournament, the global one, run its course by that point. So then they'll be able to make way for the strawweight, which then I'll take over.

DN: Carl Prince, your head coach, trained Dakota Ditcheva, now with the American Top Team. In a few years' time, if you keep up the momentum, it'll be your dream fight?

SJL: Me and Dakota have been friends since we were 10 years old. We've known each other a long time. We've gone off to different places in the world and fought together. She's more definitely a flyweight and I'm a strawweight. I would love to both of us get world titles together and then just show that we can both do it and then we can both motivate each other. 

DN: You train with Lewis McGrillen, winner of the PFL Europe Bantamweight tournament. He'll be in the co-main event, how good is he?

SJL: He's insane. I think he gets the hype that he deserves, if not, not enough. Everybody knows about his left hand, but he's dangerous. His kicks are dangerous, his grappling is dangerous. He's all-around dangerous, and he loves it. I feel like here, we don't get trained to hurt, we get trained to kill, and that’s what we both show.

DN: There is a lot of good fighters in Manchester Top Team. What is the secret of your success?

SJL: Just being as a team. There's not anybody solo here. We all come together as a team and then motivate each other, push each other.