OTHER VITALS
CAREER STATUS: Prime
WALKOUT THEME: “Now That We’re Dead” by Metallica
SPONSORS: Venum, Grunt Style, Monster
FIGHTING STYLE
PRIMARY: Kickboxing
SECONDARY: n/a
STANCE: Southpaw
STRENGTHS
Avoids Damage – Gianna’s career has been made on avoiding getting hit, whether that means staying on her feet against wrestlers and BJJ fighters, or dodging punches from other strikers.
Kickboxing Focus – First and foremost, Gianna is a kickboxer. Even once she decided to do MMA, kickboxing is her focus, and she’s developed into quite a talented one.
Stamina for Days – Go, go, go. Gianna’s entire style depends on being able to move and dodge and weave the entire fight.
WEAKNESSES
Elementary Ground Work – As mentioned, Gianna’s a kickboxer first and foremost. She avoids hitting the ground as much as humanly possible, so her training there is…not as extensive.
Hates the Clinch – Gianna HATES being clinched up. She’s no Muay Thai fighter, she doesn’t throw those elbows or have a strong clinch of her own, she works best when she can move.
No Killer Instinct – Gianna plays with her food too much, so to speak. She’s never chasing a knockout; if she gets it, great, but if she goes 3 rounds and wins a clear-cut decision, she’s fine with that too.
STATISTICAL INFORMATION
#1 Punches: 19
#2 Kicks: 19
#3 Clinch Striking: 5
#4 Clinch Grappling: 5
#5 Strength: 16
#6 Agility: 19
#7 Dodging: 19
#8 Takedowns: 5
#9 Takedown Defense: 14
#10 Heart: 15
#11 Ground & Pound: 5
#12 Ground Game: 5
#13 Submissions: 5
#14 Submission Defense: 5
#15 Conditioning: 18
#16 Toughness: 18
#17 Control: 10
#18 Aggressiveness: 10
#19 KO Resistance: 18
CONTRACT
10 FIGHTS – $1,000,000 (EXCLUSIVE)
(6 FIGHTS LEFT)
CAREER EARNINGS: $7,160,000
ACCOLADES
CHAMPIONSHIPS: 2
1x Everest MMA Strawweight Champion (inaugural)
1x Union GP Bantamweight Champion
HONORS: 2
2022 Union GP Fighter of the Year
2026 Hall of Fame
FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: 4
(UGP 25, UGP 36, UGP 38, UGP 41)
PERFORMANCE OF THE NIGHT: 6
(UGP 25, Boss Fight XXVIII, UGP 33, UGP 38, UGP 39, UGP 56)
BACKSTORY
Gianna is, to put it simply, a cocky little shit. She’s prone to bouts of taunting her opponents, making a show of the fight rather than just fighting, and she talks. My God, she talks. She talks, the entire fight. With every dodge, with every parry, with every sprawl, she gets more and more confident, and more and more provocative.
And, frankly, she doesn’t have the pedigree to be as cocky as she is. She’s no national champion wrestler, she’s no muay thai world champion, nor is she a black belt in BJJ that’s won the worlds. She’s a kid from Arizona that discovered she has good reflexes to avoid taking much damage, and she’s parlayed that into a fighting career. Undefeated as an amateur, she gave herself the nickname “The Ghost” because her opponents “hit nothing but air.”
With every win, her confidence grew, until she decided she was done being an amateur, and she had to make a choice: she could dip her toes into the professional scene, get a little experience before trying to take on the big names–or she could dive in head-first, and see what happens.
Born Joanna Hayes, the woman that became Gianna Howard was, at least outwardly, the “perfectly normal” girl growing up. She was everything you would expect from a small town girl, albeit more of a tomboy than might’ve been expected. Then…something happened. “Something” isn’t clear–she never tells the same story twice. In some instances, she ran away from home; in others, she got kicked out for…breaking whatever rule; in still some others, she just left home because she wanted to.
What she keeps consistent is that she changed her name once she turned 18, and moved to Phoenix. It was there that she discovered fighting, through Impact MMA. She was chiefly interested in just “throwing hands,” so she started training in boxing–then, eventually, took up kickboxing. After only a couple months, with no prior experience and only the confidence of youth on her side, she took her first fight–and won, by decision, notably only getting hit 6 times in 9 minutes.
To say her ego got boosted by the win would be to say the ocean is “a little damp;” she would keep taking fights, and kept winning them. She started training in grappling, purely as a defense originally, but eventually she started taking MMA fights as well. After a combined 14 amateur bouts, she decided to tryout for–and eventually be accepted into–Throne MMA, and turned pro.
