UFC fighters have celebrated victories hundreds of different ways, but GiGi Canuto thinks she may have broken new ground.<\/p>\n
The Ultimate Fighter 34 strawweight contestant scored a dominant victory on the latest episode of the long-running reality show, needing less than 30 seconds to finish Anita Karim with a pair of devastating body kicks. Canuto\u2019s performance earned Team Michael Bisping it\u2019s first win of the season.<\/p>\n
Prior to the contest, Canuto made a $500 bet with opposing coach Daniel Cormier that she would win via knockout and after doing just that, Cormier paid up right after. That\u2019s when Canuto decided to make it rain in the octagon, possibly becoming the first fighter to ever celebrate in that manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe producers actually told me that I might be the first person to make it rain in an octagon,\u201d Canuto told MMA Fighting. \u201cBecause they were like, people are usually not allowed to take money or anything, like they leave their stuff in the warmup room and then they walk out and they have the bucket and gloves. \u2026 DC had his money in his pocket and I was even saying, \u2018You\u2019re already ready, you had that thing ready.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201dWhen he gave it to me I was like, how funny would it be for me to make it rain in front of Dana White? Even Dana was just looking at me and he was like, \u2018Holy shit. Congrats, kid.\u2019 It was a great experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cormier\u2019s willingness to accept the wager may have been gamesmanship on his part. Still only 23, Canuto is a highly respected Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion who has already flirted with the big show, taking part in a UFC Fight Pass Invitational event in March 2024 when she submitted UFC fighter Denise Gomes with a heel hook. It\u2019s likely Cormier\u2014who was familiar with Canuto due to her training with Andrew Cejudo (a friend of Cormier\u2019s and former UFC star Henry Cejudo\u2019s brother)\u2014thought Karim would have a better chance of beating Canuto in the standup.<\/p>\n
In fact, Canuto heard a Team Cormier coach doubting her striking skills, which prompted her to make the $500 bet on the spot.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Cormier is] talking to me like we know each other basically and he thought that we were having a buddy conversation like, \u2018Hey GiGi, maybe don\u2019t take her down. Let\u2019s make this exciting and I think it will be a really good fight if you guys stay standing,\u201d Canuto said. \u201cThat was just us having a conversation in the back [before shooting] and the moment that they\u2019re like, \u2018We\u2019re live,\u2019 I immediately go, \u2018Hey, he was just telling me in the back\u2019 and I kind of just say it out loud and \u2018DC\u2019 you can see him in the episode and he was like, \u2018Are you going to tell?\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Hell yeah, I\u2019m going to tell.\u2019 It was just very funny.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there was one of the coaches, they were like, \u2018If she doesn\u2019t take you down, she\u2019s f*cked,\u2019 something along those lines. I was just like, \u2018OK, let\u2019s make a bet.\u2019 He\u2019s like, \u2018What do you want to bet?\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018500 bucks that I knock her out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The outcome could not have gone better for Canuto who scored an impressive knockout in front of UFC CEO Dana White, advanced to the TUF 34 semifinals, and left the cage $500 richer.<\/p>\n
However, she does have one major regret.<\/p>\n
\u201cDC has money, I should have bet more than that,\u201d Canuto said, laughing. \u201cI genuinely was super confident and then I won, so I was like, I should have bet way more. \u2026 I was like, f*ck, I should have bet more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I bet, I didn\u2019t know that it would maybe be something that was one-sided because I thought if I lose, I have to pay him, so I was thinking about a price that I could afford because I\u2019m not just going to bet $5,000 and I don\u2019t have it. So I was like, $500, and it just so happened that it worked and I was just like, f*ck, now I should have bet more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of the underwhelming wager, Canuto can only be happy with her first fight on the show. Canuto improved to 7-1 as a pro with a submission win over Janaina Silva at LFA 224 this past January, and she was bristling with confidence that this would be the year she received a UFC call-up. However, Canuto first needed to establish a stable training situation. Returning to Las Vegas, one of the U.S. cities she grew up in after she moved from Brazil as a child, Canuto had an uneasy feeling and was initially even more put off when the possibility to join the TUF 34 cast arose.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so negative towards it,\u201d Canuto said. \u201cIt\u2019s uncomfortable. I\u2019m going to have to live with people. I almost thought it was a little below what I could do because I was like, I could just go [into the UFC] straight. It was kind of just my ego speaking. A lot of people would say no because it\u2019s just like a risk, kind of. You\u2019re being filmed to the whole world and fighting with no crowd, you\u2019re fighting right in front of Dana.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was weird because two days later, I\u2019m standing on the couch, and I start almost panicking,\u201d she continued. \u201cMy husband\u2019s like, \u2018What\u2019s wrong?\u2019 I was like, \u2018Oh f*ck, I think I have to do it.\u2019 He was like, \u2018What changed your mind? That was a crazy drastic change.\u2019 I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m just being told to do it now. I don\u2019t know what it is, but I have to do it because it\u2019s uncomfortable, because I don\u2019t want to do it, I have to do it.\u2019 I talked to my friends and I talked to a lot of people that I consider my mentors and they were just, like, \u2018Gigi, if I could make a show for you, it would be TUF.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the casting was done, Canuto decided she wasn\u2019t going to hold back in front of the cameras, which explains the emotional celebration that also saw her throwing up her middle fingers and even shouting at White cageside.<\/p>\n
Canuto was determined to unapologetically be herself on TUF even when it comes to dealing with the most powerful man in MMA.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven before the fight [White] was like, \u2018Good luck, kid,\u2019 and I looked at him and I literally said, \u2018I don\u2019t need luck,\u2019\u201d Canuto said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that he didn\u2019t like it, I think that he genuinely likes when you show your personality, so I looked at him and I said, \u2018I don\u2019t need luck and you\u2019re about to see something.\u2019 He was genuinely, like, \u2018Oh f*ck. This is real for her.\u2019 Obviously, he watches so many fights, and I think he could feel the energy and I was genuinely there ready to go to war.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of was trying to tell myself he\u2019s just another human, like he just so happens to have power,\u201d Canuto added. \u201cI\u2019m like, dude, I\u2019m not going to let him affect my performance. Once I had the performance that I wanted to have, I\u2019m like, \u2018That was 2 percent of what I can do.\u2019 Because in my head, in that moment, my message was \u2018Independent of what happens on the show, you see something and I want you to remember it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC fighters have celebrated victories hundreds of different ways, but GiGi Canuto thinks she may have broken new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-766436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}