Sarah Moras Pulls Off a Submission So Gross Daniel Cormier Doesnã¢â‚¬â„¢t Even Want to See It Again

Ashlee Evans-Smith poses on the calibration during the UFC 215 counterbalance-in inside the Rogers Place on September 8, 2017 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photograph by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)" align="heart" />
If commentators describe Ashlee Evans-Smith as a "different" fighter when she steps into the Octagon to confront Bec Rawlings in Brooklyn on Apr vii, they will have no thought simply how right they are.

Sure, there are the obvious things: the tweaks made in a fight campsite for a specific opponent and the move from bantamweight to flyweight. Only perhaps the greatest change in "Rebel Girl" since her September 2017 loss to Sarah Moras and the subsequent rehab for the arm injured in the terminate to that bout is that she got back to her roots - non in fighting, just in journalism, as she created a YouTube aqueduct that features Evans-Smith on the other side of the microphone.

"I had been thinking about starting a YouTube aqueduct, but I was very shy about it," said the Menlo College graduate. "So I thought, 'What if I put the microphone in front of somebody else?'"

The result has been an eclectic mix of musicians, comedians and, of course, her fellow fighters, and it's a return to a field that she thought was closed forever after higher.

"I graduated back in '09 and I wanted to be an investigative journalist," said Evans-Smith, who was the editor of her school'due south newspaper as a junior and senior. "I wanted to write difficult-striking stories about things that actually mattered, but I ended upwards bartending right out of college because information technology was during the recession, it was in Silicon Valley, and I just couldn't make ends meet. I couldn't even get an internship in the Bay Area. And, by the way, nobody told me that print journalism was not the way to go."

She laughs, feeling the pain of impress journalists effectually the globe. With that door airtight, i to fighting opened, but when she started training, women weren't even in the UFC. That would change thanks to Ronda Rousey, and past the time Evans-Smith turned pro with a win over Tori Adams in March 2013, she had something to shoot for.

"I just got lucky that something that I loved to practice ended upwardly being lucrative," she said. "And so I followed my centre and here I am fighting in the UFC."

In Dec 2014, Evans-Smith made her Octagon debut confronting Raquel Pennington, and while she lost that bout, she went 2-2 in her side by side four, with wins over Marion Reneau and Veronica Macedo. Only the two losses to Ketlen Vieira and Moras both came in 2017, leaving her in a tough spot to sit in as she rehabbed her injury.

Enter her new media endeavour, one she hopes to pursue total-time one time she'southward finished fighting.

"If I could get a job mail-fight career interviewing, whether it'south on camera or off, that would be my side by side dream job besides the one I'g doing now," said Evans-Smith, who has found a fashion for this to enhance her fighting gig. She cites enquiry that saw her picking up helpful hints from UFC Hall of Famer Pat Miletich when he was on the Joe Rogan Podcast, every bit well as a recent tour of Iraq with beau fighters Diego Sanchez, Tom Lawlor and Dennis Bermudez that saw her sharing stories of life in the fight game.

"We fighters become through so much and sometimes nosotros feel so alone in all this, but it's the same for all of u.s.," she said. "We're all fighting for money and the love of the sport and for our families and our proper noun, so I take a lot abroad from the interviews and that's why I've really fallen in love with it."

She has as well gained a greater appreciation for the craft of interviewing, and is not shy when it comes to revealing the questions her interviewers should stay away from.

"At that place'due south a couple of them," she laughs. "One is 'How is the weight cut going?' Let'due south just say it's going bad; they're non gonna be like, 'Man, I'yard really hurting, I don't know if I'm even going to brand weight.' They're non gonna say that. And if it's going proficient, they're gonna be like, 'It'southward going keen.' So you lot're gonna get the same answer every time unless you become a real grapheme. That's a featherbrained question, and so there'south, 'Oh, can you tell us your game programme?' Of form I can't tell you lot the game plan."

What she tin can tell is her reason for moving to the flyweight division.

"I actually ended up doing better on my nutrition while I was injured subsequently that fight than I usually practise, even during fight military camp," she said. "I started waking up and walking around at the lightest I ever have. So I started thinking that I should claiming myself, and if I do it the correct style, with a nutritionist in a healthy way, why not? And so I made that decision."

And beingness a standout in a new division where the top could exist simply a few wins away didn't hurt in the decision making process either.

"It was an aggregating of different factors, and that was 1 of them," Evans-Smith said. "The partitioning was open and people kept asking me, but I looked at the sectionalization, I watched the championship fight and I said, 'I may not be globe champion, but I can exist world champion ane day.' And it might not exist my next two fights, but that division is definitely open."

She doesn't rule out a return to bantamweight either. But for now, it's April seven, Bec Rawlings, and a fresh start for Ashlee Evans-Smith.

"I still believe in myself in the 135-pound division, and I call up that the day you stop believing yous tin be champion is the day that you should stop fighting," she said. "But right at present I'g feeling fast, I'k feeling light and I think information technology'southward really gonna pay off in the fight."

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Source: https://www.ufc.com/news/evans-smith-feeling-faster-lighter-flyweight

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