TORONTO – A note to Nina Ansaroff’s future opponents: It might be best to watch your pre-fight comments, because Ansaroff might just make you eat your words.
That was the case in many ways Saturday night at UFC 231. There, Ansaroff (9-5 MMA, 3-2 UFC) overcame a bit of a slow start on the canvas to take a unanimous decision from Claudia Gadelha (16-4 MMA, 5-4 UFC).
Ahead of the fight, Gadelha said she’d be at an advantage because of “levels to this game.”
“That was a little insulting to me because there are levels to this game,” Ansaroff said. “She couldn’t do anything with my striking once she knew I could get up after she took me down. She couldn’t take me down again after I got up in the second round, and I lit her up with my striking. So yeah, there are levels to this – and she couldn’t figure mine out.”
UFC 231 took place Saturday at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. The main card aired on pay-per-view following prelims on FS1 and UFC Fight Pass.
Ansaroff ran her winning streak in the women’s strawweight division to four fights after dropping her first two bouts in the UFC. She had two wins in 2017 and two in 2018.
When she was mired in her two-fight skid after coming over from Invicta FC, Ansaroff said she wasn’t that far away from walking away from the sport.
“It was four fights ago, I didn’t want to fight anymore and here I am – I just beat the No. 3 and I want someone better. It’s good,” Ansaroff told MMAjunkie. “Whatever happens happens. I’m not pressuring myself like ‘I have to win this fight – it’s everything.’ Of course, everyone wants to win. I went into this fight like I went into every other of my last fights that I won. I trained really hard, I know what to expect from her, I’m going to put it all out there, and whatever happens happens. And it happened.”
Still, people seem to want to just presume her fiancee, UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes, is the reason she’s in the game.
“People are always going to doubt me because they think I’m riding the train of Amanda Nunes,” Ansaroff said. “They didn’t know I was a talented fighter before I met Amanda. All the comments online, all the trolls, they’re like, ‘They’re only giving her a shot because of Amanda.’ I’ve been fighting since I was 6 years old. Now everyone’s going to see that.”
Check out Ansaroff’s full post-fight interview in the video above.
And for complete coverage of UFC 231, check out the UFC Events section of the site.