“She always was a tomboy,” said Jennifer Gregorio, her mom. “She never was into the girlie stuff.”
Making a quick tour back across his daughter’s childhood, U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant Jessie Gregorio began to smile:
“The last time I saw here in a dress? Had to be her cousin’s wedding in California. She was 3. She was a flower girl and wore a fancy little purple dress that matched the others. She had shiny, white patent leather shoes and those little socks.”
“And she hated it,” Jennifer chuckled. “I had to put her regular shorts on her underneath that dress because I knew she’d pull it off as soon as she could to start playing.”
And what would she play?
“Hot Wheels, I loved Hot Wheels,” Janiece said.
“And Spiderman,” Jessie added. “She had all the stuff. Sheets on her bed. Posters on the wall. Action figures. The (spray-out) webbing. A Spiderman mask.”
Jessie and Jennifer were recounting all this the other evening at the Vision Mixed Martial Arts Dayton school in Fairborn while Janiece — now a charming, 5-foot, 15-year-old sophomore at Beavercreek High School — stood in front of them, glistening in sweat from her muay thai workout.
Her Spiderman costume is long gone, now replaced by the padded white mitts she wore on her fists, leg padding to facilitate her heavy kicks and the head gear from which a long braid of black hair hung out the back, nearly down to her waist.
Janiece still doesn’t do the “girlie” things and she knows that’s just fine.
In fact, that’s never been more the case than over the past couple of weeks during the Rio Olympic Games, where young women — like Middletown’s Kayla Harrison, who just won judo gold for the second Olympics in a row, and Flint, Michigan boxer Claressa Shields, who won gold in London and is fighting in the 75-kilogram semifinals today — are being celebrated for their skill and success in combat sports.
“Yep, they really give me inspiration and motivate me,” Janiece said. “I want to be one of those girls, too. I think it’s really cool that female athletes are coming out with gold in sports that are not normally considered girl sports. They show that we can do anything.”
She also follows Holly Holm, the mixed martial artist who was the UFC women’s bantamweight champ and remains the only person ever to stop Ronda Rousey, who had seemed invincible.
“I really look up to her because her background in boxing and muay thai is like mine,” Janiece said. “I really like how she fights. One day I want to be a professional in boxing or muay thai, too.”
Right now she’s forging her path and is working out almost daily with Visions trainer Muhammad Abdullah. She’s also worked with respected Dayton boxing trainers Ron Daniels and Craig Thurman at the Ahiska Turkish American Community Center gym on Fifth Street and at Drake’s Downtown Gym, among others.
As her dad’s Air Force career has taken them from California to Virginia — where he was stationed at the Pentagon in nearby Washington, D.C. — and now to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base 14 months ago, Janiece has picked up bouts where she could.
Her dad said she was 2-2 fighting in muay thai “smoker” shows in California — her wins were against boys — and she fought to a draw in Virginia.
As a freshman at Beavercreek last year, she joined the boys’ freshman and JV wrestling team even though she had never done the sport before. She was the only girl on the team and it was a challenge for her learning to handle herself on the mat.
She kept at it until she suffered a concussion during a boxing session against an older guy at a different MMA school in the area. That cut short her wrestling season.
But with the start of a new school year this week — after taking part in this summer’s Skyhawk Wrestling Camp at Fairborn High that featured U.S. Olympian Kyle Snyder, who competes in Rio on Sunday — she plans to try out for the wrestling team again.
“I think when she first came out for the team last year nobody really knew what to do with her,” Jennifer smiled.
“Some boys might think they’re a lot better and that girls just aren’t tough enough,” Janiece said. “But by the end of the matches, they were pretty good about it.”
Likes the discipline
As a senior enlisted aide, one of just 77 in the USAF who have such special duties serving the top brass, Jessie has been stationed around the world from Korea and Japan to Saudi Arabia, Sicily and across the U.S. in his 23-plus years in the service.
He plans to retire here next year. He has an older son back in California and he and Jennifer have three kids, all of whom are pursuing their own interests: Jerimiah, who just joined the Air Force Reserve, was in contemporary dance, 7-year-old Jaeline is in gymnastics and Janiece is beginning to make her mark in the combat sports.
“I really like the discipline of all of it,” she said. “And it gives me a release. I’m able to come into the gym, put all my other concerns aside and just focus. It feels good. I really like it.
“She is getting better and better and they talk about her competing one day,” Jennifer said.
Although Janiece often trains five days a week, Jennifer said her daughter kept that side of her life mostly to herself when she first started at Beavercreek:
“She didn’t want anyone to know at school. She didn’t want anyone to think: ‘So you think you can fight? Well, then let’s fight.’ ” She’ll admit what she does, but she doesn’t brag about it.”
Janiece shrugged: “That’s not why I do this.”
‘She listens, too’
Etched on the side wall of Vision MMA, behind the expanse of black mats in the center of the room, is a large likeness of Brazilian jiu-jitsu legend Carlson Gracie Jr.
Next to it is his motto: “If you want to be a lion, you must train with lions.”
Those are more than just words on a wall to the 115-pound Janiece.
“Even though she’s a lot younger and a lot smaller than the guys in here, she jumps right in against the more experienced fighters and holds her own,” said Abdullah, an MMA competitor himself.
“A lot of the older fighters, when you put real obstacles in front of them, they shut down. She doesn’t. Even though she may be really fatigued, she keeps going.
“She’s got a good base, she’s got strong hands and strong legs kicks and she attacks. She listens, too, and she’s humble. Those are some good things to have.
“She doesn’t shy away from any of this. She’s willing to sacrifice a lot of her childhood to do this because she sees the big picture. At this age, most girls don’t want to mix it up and get sweaty.”
Then again, Janiece Gregorio isn’t like a lot of other girls.
That was the case before and it still is now.
“You know, I saved that dress you wore in the wedding,” Jennifer said with a grin the other evening.
“It’s too small,” Janiece said dismissively, as she turned her back, picked up her head hear and headed back to the octagon cage to spar.
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