U.K. bantamweight Summer Onley was woken up early one morning a number of weeks back to the news that she’d be appearing on Dana White’s Contender Series.

“Oh my god, this is amazing,” was Onley’s immediate reaction, with her fiancé still in bed next to her. “It was very, very exciting.”

“We thought it might happen this year, but you just never know with these kind of things,” Onley told The Top Turtle Podcast on Cageside Press in a recent interview. “So I was just very, very excited.”

That said, there was no time to waste. “I was just like ‘No celebration. Straight into it.’ I just went straight into fight camp to be honest. I was already kind of in fight camp, because I was supposed to be defending my belt in September, with FCC. So I was kind of already dieting a little bit, and the training kind of picked up. So I was kind of already in that mindset, and then we had that, so it was just a big motivation boost.”

“I didn’t even celebrate, how rude of me. I didn’t even celebrate. But hopefully we get to celebrate afterwards,” Onley added.

Onley, who is 6-0 as a professional after a multi-year run as an amateur, struggled to find fights on the regional scene. While she wound up with FCC, winning gold there, the 32-year old had also been speaking with Cage Warriors and ARES FC. Still, FCC’s placement on UFC Fight Pass certainly didn’t hurt, with the promotion sending more talent the UFC/DWCS direction these days. This week, she headlines Week 9 of the Contender Series in Season 10, against Alivia Bierley.

Her move from turning pro in 2024 to landing on the Contender Series did feel quick, Onley admits. “It does feel very fast,” she told us, noting that her pro debut was June of 2024. “Which is not that long ago. I know that obviously the pool of women isn’t as big as the men, so it’s probably a little bit easier for me to get to the UFC, it’s a little bit of a faster track. When I think about it, I’ve had six fights in that time, and I’ve had loads of different looks. I’ve had really good strikers, more jiu-jitsu people, probably more strikers than jiu-jitsu people, but I’ve had a lot of different looks. So I’m really glad about that.” Adding on her ammy career that was three or four years, she’s had plenty of experience, but added “it is a bit crazy to think that.”

There was even a chance she might have landed on the Contender Series last year, though that wasn’t Summer Onley’s aim. “I didn’t want to go to the Contender Series last year. I wanted to get a title shot, I wanted to have that feel of five rounds. Five, five minute rounds. I wanted to get more experience, then like after March, I had my title defense, and I felt a little bit more ready. I was like ‘yeah, okay, now if I get the call-up, I’ll be a little bit more confident in my abilities.’”

After six fights and five finishes, “I’m glad it didn’t happen sooner. It’s even crazy now. Six fights in and two years down the line, if you’d have said this two years ago I would have said ‘no, it would take me longer.’”

As for her introduction to MMA, that was only 10 years ago. Her fiancé being a big fan of the sport, he put the UFC on one night, with Onley having no idea what it was. Her reaction was that it was “a bit barbaric,” but at the same time, “I actually loved it straight away. So entertaining, very violent, very brutal. It’s very raw, I realized that.”

In 2017, Onley got herself into jiu-jitsu, competed a bit, and after a few years, made the jump to mixed martial arts. “I begged my coach at the time” to have a fight, Onley added, admitting she only truly started training in MMA in mid-2019. “Ever since then, I’ve just been winging it. I had my amateur debut, and I’ve always said ‘I just want to see how it goes. I just want to see how I do.’”

Yet as the wins began to pile up, Onley realized she could make a career out of MMA. “I switched gyms in 2023 I think, to take it a lot more seriously. It’s kind of gone from there. I had no expectations of myself when I started MMA, I just wanted to see how I’d do. And now I’m sat here, fighting for a UFC contract. It’s just absolute madness. It’s a real surreal moment for me.”

Watch our full interview with Dana White’s Contender Series Season 10 Week 9 bantamweight Summer Onley above.