Her Fifth Gear: How Karyn Bryant Fought Through Barriers, One Round at a Time

Karyn Bryant doesn't pull any punches, and given her wildly successful run as UFC desk anchor, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

Bryant, who just wrapped up a 14-year stint as one of UFC's most knowledgeable, talented and recognizable faces, has a deep passion for sports. That fervor has been present since her days of childhood soccer, basketball and baseball games, and has been the driving force behind her contributions not only to the community and the overall sports world, but also the entertainment industry.

Indeed, Bryant has done it all, and the impact sports have had in her incredible success story anchors this edition of Her Fifth Gear.

Athleticism came natural for Bryant, whose father was an avid baseball player growing up. He played competitively while serving in the Air Force, and then enjoyed softball after he re-entered civilian life, often sponsoring his own team.

He passed that passion to Bryant, who was a multi-sport athlete throughout her high school career. She graduated with 10 varsity letters, and was the soccer team’s captain as a four-year letter winner.

Her undeniable talent commanded recognition, allowing Bryant – whose mother is Jamaican and father was biracial – to silence even her harshest critics. The Massachusetts native was raised in a community where very few people shared her family’s racial background, but her skillset gave naysayers no choice but to offer acceptance.

Unless, of course, they wanted to lose.

“What sports did back then was give me a little bit more of an equivalency, and if anything, it actually gave me advantages, because I was good,” Bryant said. “I didn’t fit in, I stood out a lot, and in my life there have been countless times where I’ve been ‘the only,’ like the only woman in a male-dominated field, or the only brown skinned person in a predominantly white environment.”

She became one of the most relied-upon teammates in every sport – forcing her biggest detractors to face their prejudices head on.

“Even if people hated me and called me the ‘n-word’ – which they did – when it came to sports, some of that fell away,” Bryant said. “It gave me an opportunity to be confident in something, and be good at something, that I could stand out in.

“Other people, in a way, they have to appreciate you. I hit cleanup. I brought all the ducks in from the pond. You can’t be mad at me, because I did it.”

Even when her journey in sports didn’t quite go as planned, it still led to a collegiate pivot that set her career path in motion.

Bryant’s post-secondary education led her to historic Brown University, where she initially hoped to walk on to the softball team. Though she played third base, shortstop and catcher, the coach quickly made it clear that the starters – who all had multiple years of eligibility remaining – would not afford many opportunities for Bryant in the field.

As such, she hung up the cleats and went to work for the university’s student-run radio stations, first on a local broadcast to the dorms before graduating up to host morning drive from 6-9 am on Brown’s 20,000 watt commercial radio station, WBRU. She also hosted afternoon drive from 3-6 pm, putting her on the air during peak listening hours.

The double major (Political Science and Sociology) student worked tirelessly, taking on the role of music director in her final two years of college before staying on after graduation as the program director. She helped introduce the Red Hot Chili Peppers to the world – giving them exposure before they had made it big – and ultimately auditioned for a role with MTV in New York.

Wouldn’t you know it? She got the job.

“Radio got me into TV,” Bryant said with a smile.

MTV was just the start. She appeared in programming with FX, TNT, TBS and TLC – among others – and then hosted CNN’s Showbiz Tonight for five nights each week, earning a billboard in Times Square in the process.

That billboard, in fact, became the launching pad for her transition into combat sports.

“My agent at the time also worked with Steve Albert, who was doing Showtime Championship Boxing. They were talking about how they needed a new reporter, and my agent said, ‘Well how about her?’ while pointing to the billboard of me and Showbiz Tonight co-host A.J. Hammer from CNN,” Bryant recalled. “I had a meeting with Showtime, we went to lunch, we talked sports, and the next thing you know I was their reporter.”

Bryant joined Showtime Championship Boxing for three-and-a-half years, cementing herself into the combat sports scene by connecting the audience with athletes in ways rarely seen.

Then came her jump to FS1 in 2012, kickstarting an impressive UFC reporting career while blazing a trail for other women in a sport that had very little female representation at the time.

Bryant didn’t just break barriers. She completely redrew the boundaries.

“It was cool to be there at that moment because it was still building,” she said. “You could feel it percolating.”

Predictably, the haters re-appeared. No matter, because Bryant was ready for them following the lessons she learned throughout her sports participation earlier in life.

“The fact that I was that “other” person for so long, that’s why I could handle it,” Bryant said. “When we’d put videos out, the comments were, ‘Go make me a sandwich, n-word,’ and ‘Get back in the kitchen, b-word.’ … Still, there was no doubt I was going to keep doing it.

“I don’t care if you say that. I’m not immune to it, but I had already heard all of that, all my life. And again, I know I’m good at this, so I’m going to keep doing it.”

And she did, for 14 years. Her time with UFC also led to exposure on ESPN, which broadcast UFC fights from 2019-2025, though by then Bryant had already cemented herself as one of the best desk anchors in any sport.

When combined with her time Showtime Championship Boxing, Bryant’s influence spanned decades, and it was a career that included dinners with legends like Don King (“That was crazy,” she said about the experience).