Chapter 6: Post-Fight Fallout

Considering one fighter had been choked unconscious, and the other had been blindsided after the bell and was almost certainly concussed and unstable, logic suggested the post-fight press conference should have been scrapped. But journalists can be just as reckless as fighters. The chance to get the first word — from either woman — outweighed common sense.

When it was announced that the presser was still on, Heidi’s camp immediately issued a statement: “She will not be participating.” That should have ended it. She wouldn’t be there. Instead, reporters lingered in the hallways, hoping for a glimpse.

They got more than that.

Heidi emerged flanked by her entourage, head down, pace brisk, face flushed and puffy. She was halfway to the exit when a voice cut through: a question about the loss, shouted too loudly, too close. Heidi stopped. Then, without a word, she snapped toward the reporter in a sudden, sharp lunge.

Her team was ready. Hands caught her arms before she’d taken more than half a step, turning the movement into a stumble as they hustled her toward the waiting car. She didn’t scream, didn’t spit insults — just a cold, violent instinct to attack, her face unreadable behind the sunglasses.

The group swept her out quickly, leaving her kickboxing coach standing in the hallway to make sure no one followed. The message was clear: there would be no questions tonight for Heidi Christenson.

Astrid Reichert was a different story.

The Press Conference

Astrid came in looking less like a conquering hero and more like someone who had wandered into the wrong room after a brawl. She was still in her fight gear, sweaty and disheveled, her hair clinging damply to her face. For all that she’d dominated 99% of the fight, the series of hooks Heidi had hit her with just before the guillotine choke were showing in purple bruises. She tried to sit upright, tried to keep her chin high and her answers sharp, but her eyes drifted unfocused, her posture slouched.

She was clearly concussed, though no one in the press row cared. What they noticed — and what the cameras picked up immediately — was the right strap of her sports bra, hanging loose and low off her shoulder. The exposed skin gave the whole scene a distracted, unprofessional air, as though she were half-undressed at her own coronation.

Astrid leaned into the microphone, smirking faintly as a reporter asked what made her think she could beat Heidi Christenson when nine fighters before her couldn’t. She squinted, searching for the English, and finally said:

“Soft and decadent American is… how you say… soft and decadent.”

The room chuckled uneasily, some scribbling notes, others exchanging looks. Her delivery was somewhere between a cruel barb and a word salad — the kind of broken-English arrogance that would instantly get clipped for social media. She basked in it, dreamy-eyed, as if the line had landed far better in her own head than it had in the room. A more seasoned journalist, trying to cut through the circus, asked the obvious: how had Astrid made the decision to clinch and pin Heidi against the cage? It was the tactical turning point of the fight, the moment Heidi’s power was neutralized.

Astrid tilted her head, blinking slowly. She opened her mouth, shut it again, then launched into something that sounded like a half-remembered monologue:

“Because… vhen volf catches the sheep, there is no kvestion, only the… rhythm, yes? The body is saying, go forvard, press, and ze cage is like iron crown. So you put her in ze crown. And zen… it is only nature, ja?”

Her words hung in the air, a tangle of metaphors that didn’t quite add up. The reporter who asked the question gave a polite nod, but the room was shifting uncomfortably — unsure whether to laugh, to write it down, or to wonder if she was entirely present.

Another reporter raised his hand, steering the conversation back toward the closing seconds of the fight. He asked, carefully, how Astrid felt after being kicked in the back — the illegal blow that had punctuated the chaos after the bell.

Astrid stared at him. Not glaring, not smirking — just staring, her eyes hazy and unfocused. The silence dragged. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Pens scratched awkwardly. A cough echoed from the back of the room. By twenty seconds the tension was unbearable, and just when someone was about to repeat the question, Astrid finally leaned toward the mic.

“It… it… it vill be dealt vith in its own time.”

The stammer on the repeated “it” was jarring, undercutting the cruel poise she was clearly trying to maintain. Her voice quavered, her accent thickening as she forced the words out. Then, just as suddenly, she leaned back again, satisfied, as though she had delivered something profound.

Finally, one of the more ethical reporters in the room cleared his throat and chose professionalism over the feeding frenzy. He addressed the moderator, not Astrid.

He pointed out that Astrid was clearly disoriented, her answers confused and halting. He added — as tactfully as he could — that she was also “not properly dressed” for the setting. It was an attempt to end things gracefully, to spare her further embarrassment.

Astrid blinked, then slowly turned her head to look at her own shoulder as though she had only just noticed. She seemed baffled for a beat. Then, with exaggerated deliberateness, she curled her right arm into a flex, showing off the bicep, and gave a little shimmy until the loose strap snapped back into place.

She leaned toward the mic, smirk returning, and launched into more of her strange, Baroness-flavored word salad:

“The crown… is heavy, and sometimes… the silk slips. But the snake does not need… clothes to eat.”

The room shifted uneasily — part laughter, part discomfort.

That was when the fight doctor, who had been lingering off to the side, finally stepped in. He approached the dais, touched Astrid gently on the shoulder, and whispered something in her ear. She looked ready to protest, but he insisted, guiding her up from her chair. With clear reluctance, she let herself be led away, still smirking faintly at the cameras as though the whole scene had been a performance.

The press conference ended not with a triumphant declaration, but with a confused exit — leaving Astrid’s legend to grow not just from the choke that felled Heidi, but from the spectacle of what came after.

The Morning After

By the next day, the fight had already slipped out of the cage and into the culture war of online discourse. Heidi’s collapse became a meme factory, a weapon for every critic who had ever dismissed her run as smoke and mirrors. They said she was never good, that she was an overhyped brawler masquerading as a monster, and now she had been exposed by someone they considered barely professional. To them, losing to Astrid Reichert didn’t just mark the end of Heidi’s aura — it vaporized whatever credibility she had ever possessed.

Astrid’s followers, on the other hand, split down the middle. Some were euphoric — celebrating her guillotine choke as the perfect comeuppance, mocking Heidi’s lunge at the reporter, and plastering “OFF WITH HER HEAD” in every comments section they could find. Others were furious that the night hadn’t ended more definitively: they wanted Astrid in front of Heidi again, in a rematch, with real consequences attached. They didn’t just want Heidi beaten. They wanted her destroyed.

The press and the pundits weren’t the only ones tearing into Heidi. All at once, people from her past — and people with no real connection at all — tried to get their fifteen minutes by badmouthing her. Former opponents resurfaced with stories of her being “unprofessional.” Podcasters who had once hyped her swan-dived off the bandwagon, eager to prove they had “seen it coming.” A few old names from pro wrestling even found the spotlight again.

One in particular, Stephen Greer, made himself busy making the rounds. Briefly a stablemate of Heidi’s circa 2009 DEFIANCE, he leveraged that brief association for all he could to present himself as an ‘expert’ in Heidi Christenson’s pro wrestling history. He claimed that Heidi had been just as terrible at wrestling as she was at MMA, that her supposed success was nothing but smoke, mirrors, and Jeff Andrews’ influence. He flatly declared her “ratings poison” — never providing any evidence, of course — and cast himself as a victim, insisting he’d been blackballed from the industry for “bravely speaking out” against her.

Others kept their comments short but sharp. Heidi’s old pro wrestling rival Gemma Lockhart didn’t bother with words at all. She simply tweeted out strings of laughing emojis during the fight broadcast and again in the days afterward. Even Marissa Graves stuck her head above water, tweeting only two words: “I came.” It was a cruel callback to Heidi’s infamous post-fight rant against her — and one more chance to twist the knife.

Heidi herself didn’t respond. And because of the post-bout assault — the deliberate, malicious kick to Astrid’s head after the fight was already decided — even people who might have wanted to be sympathetic kept their mouths shut, lest they be accused of condoning it. The closest anyone came to defending her was Claudia Dreyer, who aimed her ire not at Heidi but at the official: “If Darren Malloy had done his job even halfway properly, the whole thing never would’ve happened. He’s the one who should be kicked out of the sport.”

And then there was the trolling. Even more than the guillotine finish, one particular moment became meme fodder of the ugliest sort: the single-arm rear naked choke where Astrid had Heidi pinned against the cage, lips brushing near her ear. Screenshots spread instantly, repurposed into some of the most offensive “U gon get raped”-style memes imaginable. Similar captions were also added to shots of Heidi flattened on the mat under Astrid in the guillotine choke. The clip of Astrid deadlifting Heidi out of guard and hauling her back to her feet was also replayed endlessly, framed alternately as proof of shocking strength and as humiliation porn for a fallen star.

As for Astrid’s followers in the fitness community, they were mostly delighted to see her unmarked left arm getting attention, and complained that her signature tattoo sleeve was an eyesore. Some fandoms have different priorities. 

Then came the leak. It had been noted on fight night that Cole Christenson hadn’t even attended the event, but the reason came out. According to those close to the family, he’d told Heidi bluntly that she was heading for disaster. Her flippant camp, her refusal to prepare seriously, her assumption that she simply outclassed Astrid in every way — he saw it all coming. He was so certain she would lose that he refused to make the trip. The revelation only deepened the perception that Heidi had walked into the cage already defeated.

Meanwhile, the question of punishment loomed. Few doubted that sanctions were coming. An illegal strike after the bell and an attempted attack on a reporter were too blatant to ignore. By mid-afternoon, the consensus was that Heidi Christenson’s time in sanctioned combat sports was over. A lifetime ban felt less like speculation than inevitability.

And then there was Luke Thomas. Once again, he was the lone voice of measured analysis, and once again, no one wanted to hear it.

“She got a brutal reality check. But it could have been a lot worse for her physically — no concussion, no sprains, no broken bones. Not many bantamweights would’ve had the strength to impose on her the way Reichert did even if they had the technique. I think you’d have to move up to featherweight to find another female fighter with the same amount of raw upper body strength as Reichert has. As for Heidi, if she were to polish her footwork, work on her elbows, and take her next camp seriously, I’d give her at least even odds at winning a rematch. But I don’t see a rematch happening. She’s in her forties, and after her actions, which I fully condemn, I don’t see her ever fighting again.”

His words were sober, thoughtful, and utterly drowned out by the louder chorus baying for blood.

Not every journalist was focused on Heidi’s fall, though. A few turned their attention to Astrid Reichert, and what her victory actually meant.

One prestigious columnist — the kind who rarely wasted ink on up-and-comers — wrote that it was easy to dismiss Astrid because she leaned so heavily into pageantry. She talked like a villain, strutted like a performer, and prior to the Heidi fight had seemed more invested in her image than her training. But the fight told a different story.

Her footwork, once clumsy, had sharpened to the point that it transformed her striking. She cut angles that kept Heidi from setting her feet, forcing the veteran to throw from poor balance and worse positions. Her gameplan, too, was undeniable: close distance, smother with pressure, drag the bigger name into deep water.

“It isn’t simply that Heidi Christenson was overrated,” the columnist concluded. “Yes, the hype had gotten out of hand. But Astrid Reichert is either far better than we ever gave her credit for — or she has improved by leaps and bounds in a very short time. Either way, it is no fluke.”

It was the kind of take that should have elevated Astrid’s standing. Instead, it was largely ignored in the feeding frenzy around Heidi’s collapse and anticipation over the upcoming disciplinary hearing.

The Hearing

The disciplinary hearing was brisk, clinical, and brutal. Heidi appeared with her legal team, dressed sharply, still in shades, dark bruising visible on her neck, jaw set, refusing to so much as glance at the reporters lining the back of the room. The commission ran down the charges: an illegal strike after the bell, a physical altercation with a credentialed member of the press, and a documented pattern of unsportsmanlike behavior that, they argued, undermined the integrity of the sport.

Her lawyers countered that it had been an emotional outburst, fueled by humiliation. They argued that Ms. Christenson had been provoked. They pointed to Ms. Reichert’s own conduct inside the cage: the deliberate way she extended the chokehold even after Heidi’s attempt to submit, then the gratuitous pose astride her opponent. These actions, they argued, were unnecessary for victory and designed solely to taunt and humiliate.

They further contended that the official himself had failed in his duty of care. The referee ignored Heidi’s attempt at a verbal submission, allowed the choke to continue long past the point of safety, and only acted when she was visibly on the verge of unconsciousness. That negligence left Heidi deprived of oxygen for an extended period, and in such a compromised, disoriented state she could not be expected to exercise full judgment in the moments that followed. Furthermore, he allowed Astrid to taunt Heidi while remaining in physical contact with her for a prolonged period after the fight.

The commissioners were unmoved. They acknowledged the defense’s points, but dismissed them as immaterial. In their view, Ms. Reichert’s conduct inside the cage, however unseemly, did not absolve Ms. Christenson of her own responsibilities as a licensed combatant. “Athletes are expected to maintain professionalism under duress,” one member remarked, his tone making plain that humiliation was no excuse.

As for the referee’s role, the panel allowed that officiating is an imperfect science, but insisted the official’s judgment on the night was not under review. To suggest otherwise, another commissioner said curtly, was to deflect from Ms. Christenson’s actions after the contest.

Finally, on the question of her mental state, the commission declined to recognize oxygen deprivation as mitigating. “Fighters recover from holds every week without lashing out,” a third member observed. The remark carried a pointed weight, as though directed less at the facts and more at Heidi herself.

The conclusion was blunt: Ms. Christenson’s conduct was a danger to opponents, officials, and the sport’s reputation.

The verdict came swiftly: an indefinite suspension. The phrasing was diplomatic, the sort of bureaucratic language meant to leave a sliver of daylight for “review.” But everyone in the room, including Heidi, knew what it meant. Lifetime. She was finished.

What nobody was thinking about — not her lawyers, not the journalists, not even the commission itself in that moment — was that their jurisdiction didn’t stop at the cage. The language of the ruling made no distinction between combat sports. Boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts… and professional wrestling.

For decades, the commission had looked the other way on all things professional wrestling, treating it as a circus, a self-contained world that was better left undisrupted. But their rulings were written broadly, and this one carried no caveats. By the letter of the law, Heidi Christenson was not only banned from the octagon and the grappling mats. She was banned from the squared circle, too.

It was a technicality no one had considered, but one that would reshape her future.

The Legal Fallout

On paper, Astrid Reichert had grounds to sue. An illegal strike after the bell that had, in fact, caused a severe concussion that would take months to fully recover from — her camp made it clear they were preparing for legal action. For a few weeks, everyone assumed the next headline would be about damages, settlements, or sanctions that stretched even further.

And then… silence.

For nearly two months, Astrid stopped talking about MMA altogether. She didn’t stop posting — far from it. Her social media was still full of thirst traps, flexing clips, and fitness-model photo shoots. She leaned harder than ever into the “Baroness” persona, feeding fans just enough to keep her name circulating. But there was no talk of her next fight, no chatter about opponents, no hint of a rematch. There was very little about Heidi Christenson, and what there was mostly focused on Astrid overcoming an undefeated and terrifying opponent, while glossing over the fact that she’d overcome that undefeated, terrifying opponent with ease and deliberately humiliated her.

Then came the announcement.

As part of the settlement with Heidi Christenson — the bulk of which was left undisclosed — Astrid Reichert would be leaving MMA entirely. In exchange for dropping the legal charges and an undisclosed financial settlement, she would be trained by Heidi’s own crew… to become a professional wrestler.

The reaction was instant and incredulous. Journalists were blindsided. MMA fans were dumbstruck. Even Astrid’s haters, the ones who had spent weeks dismissing her as a fraud and a fluke, admitted shock that she would walk away from the cage at the exact moment she’d found lightning in a bottle.

But as the takes started rolling in, one refrain kept surfacing:

“She was already basically a pro wrestler.”