Achhal Fights, Seizes 'Independence'

Annandale Resident Set to Make MMA Debut

By B.J. Koubaroulis
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, February 21, 2009

Iman Achhal pinched each of her cheeks between her thumbs and index fingers and pulled them in a sharp upward motion as she reenacted the worst beating she ever received.

"If you ever wondered if it was possible to lift someone up by their cheeks, I know that it is," said Achhal, a 32-year-old Annandale resident who will make her professional debut on an undercard in Saturday's Ultimate Warrior Challenge 5: Man "O" War -- a 10-card Mixed Martial Arts event at George Mason University's Patriot Center in Fairfax.

During a break in her training earlier this month, Achhal, nicknamed "Mannie," peered out from underneath her Adidas baseball cap and relived what she called "the beating of her life" when, at 18 years old, she endured a 30-minute verbal and physical pounding at the hands of her mother. She was devastated that her daughter had refused an arranged marriage to a man she had hand-picked from their hometown in Morocco.

"I just knew I could do better than to marry someone I didn't know or I didn't love and just end up barefoot and pregnant, so I knew I had to get out of that situation," said Achhal, who, at 18, fled the small country in northern Africa and came to the United States on a green card she won through her biological father.

(More here.)