Felice Herrig, who trains in Crystal Lake, set for Saturday's UFC on Fox

Felice Herrig felt cheated when she graduated from Buffalo Grove High School.

Small but strong, she was a natural athlete. Her first attempt at the triple jump, she says she broke the school record. Yet, while her high school classmates hopped, skipped and jumped through workouts on the track, Herrig walked to Outback Steakhouse, where she worked as a hostess to help provide money for her family.

“I think a lot of fighters fought through life and that’s what makes them fight,” Herrig said. “I think that I was always like that. My parents didn’t have money to buy shampoo for me or clothes. Anything that I needed, I had to buy.”

The fight continues when the 115-pound Herrig squares off with 21-year-old Paige Van Zant in a UFC strawweight bout at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. FOX will broadcast UFC on FOX 15 at 3 p.m. Saturday.

The bout will mark Herrig’s 16th in MMA (she’s 10-5, 1-0 UFC), but her days of throwing punches date back further. Her father’s garage was her first training gym, complete with three heavy bags, a speed bag and weights. An old faded photograph shows a 4-year-old Herrig sporting her dad’s gloves… and a dress.

This is the dichotomy of Herrig. The dress meshes with the 30-year-old’s definition of herself as a “girly girl.” Sitting outside the Davis Speed Center in Crystal Lake after a training session that ended with her challenging one of the male trainers to a flex off, she pointed out that her matching sports bra and shoes are no coincidence.

She loves painting her nails and getting dressed up. Her closet is filled with dresses and high heels. And on days of fights, the ribbons in her hair are color coordinated with the gladiator skirts she designs herself.

That’s one side. Then there’s the other side, the one that, well, beats people up for a living and who isn’t afraid to talk trash on her opponent, Van Zant.

“Honestly, I don’t think much of this girl,” said Herrig, who won the International Kickboxing Federation Pro Muay Thai title and several other titles before dedicating herself exclusively to MMA in 2009. “She doesn’t have the credentials that I have. She doesn’t have the experience that I have. She’s not a better striker than me. She’s not a better grappler than me. She’s not more athletic than me.”

In the short term, Herrig's goal is to make her mark in UFC and contend for the belt. But for a person who has been fighting her whole life, she also looks forward to a time when she can put the gloves down and pursue a career outside of the sport, maybe broadcasting.

"I don't want fighting to be the end-all be-all. I don't want to stop fighting and then have nothing left to do," Herrig said. "Twenty years from now, I want people to say my name and have them know who I am. I don't want to just fit in or be forgotten. "