Mother throttles fighter in our class (8)

'class' is the definition.
(I know that Mammalia taxon rank class)

'mother throttles fighter in our' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'mother' could be 'mamma' (mamma is a kind of mother) and 'mamma' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'lia' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?