'Always kicking back, always fighting': NSB woman inducted into Martial Arts Hall of Fame

It started 30 years ago with a car ride in Houston that Shannon Hall-Girolamo can barely remember.

It culminated a couple of weeks ago with a moment she’ll never forget.

And yet, the New Smyrna Beach resident (for a little longer) feels anything but done.

“I think I’m just getting started,” she said.

With her career having come full circle, Hall-Girolamo knows only one direction: forward. It’s what pushed her through a tryout for The American Gladiators in 1993, a platform that launched a whirlwind tour through combat sports including stints in professional boxing and pro wrestling, a couple of Toughwoman crowns and a mastery of multiple disciplines including a Women’s Sanshou championship in 1997.

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That resume was enough to warrant an induction into the United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame in a ceremony held July 20-22 right back in Houston.

Full circle? Absolutely. But she admitted the moment was bigger than she could’ve ever anticipated.

“I was so overwhelmed, I didn’t know what was happening until I was there and I saw the magnitude of what it was,” Hall-Girolamo said. “I didn’t know that it would to that to me inside.

“It was a beautiful feeling. It felt like it was supposed to happen.”

From cheerleading to "The American Gladiators"

In terms of fighting, that’s what it felt like as far back as she can remember, to her time growing up in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

“I’ve been swinging since I was five years old,” Hall-Girolamo recalled. “I was five years old and a boy called my mom, ‘a slut.’ So, I punched him and knocked him out.

“Then I started kicking all my boyfriends’ asses. I had a real good rep for fighting boys. Boys around there are cheaters and I’d just beat their asses when they were doing drugs or cheating or something stupid like that.”

It was quite the dichotomy for a high school cheerleader who grew up in gymnastics, a background that eventually landed her a spot on the college dance team at Arkansas State University. Shortly after, carried by a fighter’s mentality, an athletic physique and a push from her current boyfriend, she arrived in Dallas where she trained as a body builder.

After a couple of years, Hall-Girolamo won her first show and to celebrate, rode with friends to Houston the following weekend, where after months of clean eating and living, she was finally able to let loose.

“I was drunk as a skunk in the back of a car,” she recalled. “We were in Houston and my friends saw a sign to try out for The American Gladiators. They said I had to try.

“I can’t even remember the tryout.”

But time and time again, she left an unforgettable impression on the show’s brass.

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“I got a call back to be a Contender and they flew me to Los Angeles and I started training there for the show,” she said. “I was kicking everybody’s ass. I was big and strong and they asked me if I wanted to be a Gladiator.

“I wasn’t ‘roided out, I was more of a natural athlete. For a big chick, I could move like a little chick.”

Appearing on the show as "Dallas," her highlight came in 1995 as she defeated Zap in season seven's Alumni/Tiger Twins Challenge.

The following year, she arrived in Florida thanks to an American Gladiators live show in Orlando. Once there, she was invited to judge a new Toughwoman competition under the Toughman umbrella. But when women’s boxing pioneer Christy Martin committed to judge, Hall-Girolamo was replaced.

As she’s apt to do, Hall-Girolamo fought back.

“I had already taken off work to go, so, I asked, ‘What do you win?’ ” she said. “They told me $10,000 and I thought, 'It’s just amateur boxing.' I’d been fighting since I was five years old. So, I flew down there and won the whole thing.”

In addition to the money came a professional boxing contract.

Hall-Girolamo kept on swinging, only now, she was getting paid for it.

Pro boxing, Sanshou and UFC what-ifs

With combat sports her profession, Hall-Girolamo made an even deeper dive. In 1998, she fought Tera Fernandez in the first women’s boxing match ever held at Madison Square Garden. Hall-Girolamo won by TKO.

Not satisfied, she entered a Wushu Unlimited Martial Arts tournament in Orlando and trained briefly with actor Cung Le in Sanshou, which is full-contact Chinese kickboxing. Hall-Girolamo won the tournament.

“I won everything I did,” she said of the time. "I was so strong, I was training every day and I had natural ability.”

She also trained in muay thai and looking back, Hall-Girolamo was well ahead of her time … and the UFC's embracing of women fighters. The organization didn’t put on its first women’s fight until 2013 and by then, Hall-Girolamo was full on into parenthood and gym ownership.

Still, it’s hard not to wonder how she would’ve stacked up in mixed martial arts events.

“Me and Cris Cyborg, she would’ve been the one I wanted,” Hall-Girolamo said. “We would’ve sold some tickets, that’s for sure.”

An exploratory foray into pro wrestling ended before she made an appearance at a show. And with the birth of her son in 2001 and her daughter in 2005, priorities changed.

“I’d been a wild child for a long time and having kids really calmed me down,” she said. “And it renewed my faith in God. If it wasn’t for Jesus, I wouldn’t be here.”

The present, the future and a brief look back

Life became simpler then, though Hall-Girolamo wasn’t about to stop. She kept up with training and opened a couple of gyms, notably Knockout Artist Fight Club in Edgewater, though it closed its doors after Hurricane Nicole this past fall.

Along the way she’s trained and managed MMA fighters, served as a boxing coach and has taught other disciplines, including jiu jitsu.

With both of her children now graduated from New Smyrna Beach High School, Hall-Girolamo is preparing to move to Miami to join her husband, Italian heavyweight boxer, Matteo Girolamo. She’s helping Matteo train for a run in the WWE, and opening a new school is a possibility as well.

So, with all that on the horizon, it’s no wonder that a Hall of Fame induction caught her a bit off guard. And though she vows to keep swinging, she took a moment to appreciate the blows she's already landed.

“Just get out of your house, take chances and just do stuff,” she said. “If it wasn’t for me saying, ‘Let’s try it,’ … nothing was given to me. It was by chance, but it was by chance because I went for it. You’ve got to take chances and when you stop taking chances, you get comfortable. When you stop living, you start dying.

“I’ll always be in that gym. Always hitting, always kicking back, always fighting.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Former "American Gladiator", boxer and NSB resident gets HOF induction