If an MMA fan could create a dream job it would be something along the lines of: Cage side seats to every fight card, vip access to every fight after party, and a chance to interact with the fighters in their elements before and after the fight.

Meet Tracy Lee; Tracy has worked hard to live out this very dream and so much more. The MMA News caught up with the self described “workaholic” as she zig zags across the globe to bring us an inside look into the lives of some of the greatest fighters in the sport.

Terry (TheMMANews): “To the hard core MMA fans you have become known as the ultimate insider, but for the fans who may not know you tell us a little bit about what you do?”

Tracy: “That is very diverse; I am all over the place. I shoot the fighters, behind the scenes in the MMA industry. I go into the fight camps; I shoot the fighters from the minute they wake up till they go to sleep. I shoot the actual fight events, UFC, WEC, Strikeforce, and Elite XC when they were around. I work for the clothing lines in the industry; I have shot for Tapout, Clinch Gear, Dethrone, Fairtex and any number of clothing lines. I also get hired out by UFC Magazine, Fighter Only Magazine, Fight Magazine, MMA Authority Magazine, MMA Worldwide; I free Lance for a lot of different magazines. I also shoot for Fox Sports and I just got hired by THQ with UFC Undisputed 2010 to do some work for them, basically I am all over the place, whenever people need photos they tend to call me because they know I’m going to be there.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “You started off working with Napkinnights.com shooting for the after parties, how did you first get involved with that?”

Tracy: “I started it. I was clubbing In Sacramento and taking photos of me and my friends, and going to Las Vegas and people just always loved to see my party photos. It was unheard of, I would just post party photos on a Photoshop gallery and it was very primitive to what we have now. Everybody I worked with loved to see them, and they would pass around the pictures to their friends, and it kind of went from there.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “So how did it get directly involved with the MMA scene?”

Tracy: “I used to shoot all the fight after parties, and because of that I got to know a lot of the fighters from going to the clubs. Then they would tell their friends “if you’re going to Vegas call Tracy, because she has all the hookups at the clubs.” So I built relationships with a lot of the guys as a result of that.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “Are you employed by any of the organizations like Zuffa, or are you just doing your own thing with combat life style?”

Tracy: “I am a free lancer, I usually credential for UFC by one of the magazines, and one of the websites but I am not credentialed for UFC by my own website.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “Travelling across the country constantly and working into the early hours of morning must get exhausting after a while, what keeps you going?”

Tracy: “I was up till about 7 this morning working. I am a workaholic; I don’t know how to explain it other than that. I enjoy creating stuff and driving traffic, anything to with marketing and getting people to see what I am doing. MMA happens to be a passion of mine and because it is I want people to see what I’m doing in the MMA industry—I take pride in my work.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “What are your favorite and least favorite parts of your job?”

Tracy: “Well my favorite is travelling around and meeting new people. I get to see a lot of places, I’m not a photographer for no reason, I enjoy taking photos. So when I go to new places I get to take new photos, I get to add them to the collection and its pretty cool be able to do that. On the flipside of it, every once in a while its gets to the point where it’s just too much, living in hotel rooms all the time, and constantly having no basis in reality that sometimes get to be a bit too much. I took most of December off to stay home in Vegas so I could get my wits and my bearings about me.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “Is going to an event still exciting for you, or has it all become routine at this point?”

Tracy: “It’s become very routine at this point, but that doesn’t mean it’s not exciting, because I am so busy with so projects on top of just shooting the fights, a lot of the time I don’t have a chance to really look at the card and inspect whose going to be on it. It’s kind of a surprise when I get there to see whose going to be there, a fun surprise. It’s like “Oh I didn’t know you were going to be here!” I remember being in Minnesota and running into Manny Gamburyan in the hotel room and being like “hey what are you doing here?” and he’s like “I’m fighting” and then he made me sit down and log into ufc.com and see who was fighting. I don’t mean to sound like it’s not important enough to me to know what’s going on, on the card it’s just that sometimes there are so many cards going on now; Zuffa will have 3 fights in one month with 2 UFC’s and 1 WEC and its hard to keep track of all the fights going on.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “You started training Jui Juitsu in Vegas with Sergio Penha a while back, how is your training coming along? And did this help you appreciate the sport a lot more?”

Tracy: “I’m not training anymore. I quit training because I kept getting hurt, and I know that kind of sounds like I gave up. But I was getting hurt to the point where I was unable to do my work and travel around. The reason I started training, was so that I could become a better photographer in the industry and understand and anticipate submissions and know what was going on in a fight. I came into the industry knowing nothing, just came into it because of a lot of my friends being involved in it.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “So did it help you appreciate the sport a lot more?”

Tracy: “It did. I’m out here right now in Athens Georgia with Brian Bowles, and they have a lot of really talented guys out here and as I’m running around shooting I can glance across the room with 15 pairs of guys who are rolling and anticipate submissions and know what’s going on and get the best pictures that I can. That is opposed to not understanding and wasting a lot of “film” per say.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “Has the MMA community become like a family, or is interacting with the fighters just a part of your job?”

Tracy: “For sure, one of the best things involved about being involved in this is that every event I go to we are like a travelling circus. I have had conversations about that other people involved and everybody agrees we are like a travelling circus. Every circus is going to have your same basic elements to it and every time it’s going to be a little bit different in whose working that particular one. So every event that I go to I’m really excited because I always end up getting to know someone better than I didn’t know before. I become better friends with someone I didn’t know as much, because you’re in a different city where you don’t know anybody except you casually know each other so you end up going out for meals, or going out for adventures. So I have to admit that is one of my favorite parts of being involved in this, getting to know someone you never would have thought you would get to know better.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “What kind of things are you doing when you’re not working for your website?”

Tracy: “I started a business doing marketing consulting and I spend a lot of time working on the guy’s websites and working on teaching them to brand and market themselves on the internet. I am always working, so if it’s not MMA stuff, it’s going to be internet marketing stuff. If it’s not that I do photo shoots, I been hired a lot lately for people outside of the MMA industry. Everything I do I love, so I will never actually work a day in my life, but I am always working.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “As you have probably come to know some of the fighters on a personal level, is it tough to watch them fight, or lose a fight?”

Tracy: “I have to say, the Amir Sodallah vs Brad Blackburn is a perfect example of something like that, because I am friends with both of those guys and I spend plenty of time with both of those guys. And when they go and fight each other one is going to win and one is going to lose, and one I’m going to see at the after party and one I’m not going to see at the after party and that’s how that situation usually goes down. It’s hard, because they both know I’m friends with the other so what do I say to them? I am not very eloquent when it comes to saying good words to tough someone up after a loss, I will be the first to admit I am not very great at that.”

Terry (TheMMANews): “If you weren’t doing what you are now, what would you be doing?”

Tracy: “I imagine I would still be working on napkinnights stuff, but you never know I constantly create and come up with new business ideas so I don’t know. I am really creative and I love coming up with new ideas all the time. I can’t say I would defiantly be skydiving if I wasn’t doing MMA because I really don’t know. I am an Aquarius, I’m an adventurous person and I don’t think I can’t, I always think I can. “

Terry (TheMMANews): “Do you have any words for you’re devoted on line followers?”

Tracy: “That sounds pretty crazy to think that the thing I do as a passion has created a following but I guess it kind of has. I hear all the time from people on the internet and people I meet that “you got the coolest job in the world” the reason why I have that cool job is that I wasn’t scarred to do it. I think a lot of people are scared to step outside of their comfort zone and take a chance, and if your willing to take a chance you’re going to do something you love to do. So what I can say to people is don’t let fear get in the way, do what you want to do and don’t be scarred to do it—take a chance make an effort and chances are you will succeed and do something that you love.”