Alex Apodaca did it. She actually did it.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday night, Apodaca faced Bella Mir in the main event of Week 3 of Contender Series, coming in as the biggest underdog in the show\u2019s history. To most, Apodaca was supposed to be a stepping stone for Mir to move on to the UFC, but Apodaca didn\u2019t get that memo. Instead, Apodaca scored one of the biggest upsets in MMA history by outworking Mir over 15 minutes to win a unanimous decision.<\/p>\n
The win earned Apodaca a UFC contract and praise from CEO Dana White, and although she had promised to shock the world beforehand, doing so still left Apodaca stunned herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis shit\u2019s crazy,\u201d Apodaca said at her post-fight press conference. \u201cI was totally alarmed by the whole thing. I was kind of expecting it, but you know, the actual reality of it has hit, so it kind of feels like a fever dream. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sick. I think it\u2019s so cool that I pulled it off,\u201d Apodaca said later. \u201cLike I said, it\u2019s hard to believe sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apodaca didn\u2019t win by accident. The 32-year-old bantamweight was unfazed by the hype behind Mir, stymying Mir\u2019s vaunted grappling game and piling up damage on the feet. Mir had some success early, but by the end of the first round, Apodaca says she knew she was going to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI assumed she was going to wrestle. I think everybody did,\u201d Apodaca said. \u201cIt was like, \u2018Let\u2019s get her on the ground and submit her.\u2019 That was probably the plan. Once I felt her, once I touched her and felt her, I was like, alright, we\u2019ve got this shit in the bag. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the first round, when I ended up on top, I knew it then. Yeah, I did [feel she was defeated then]. I could also tell she hadn\u2019t been in the second and third round much, and that\u2019s where I live, so I was fine with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On top of her lack of experience, Apodaca thinks Mir also may have been a little overconfident heading into the fight, which helped her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think she got a little caught up in her head,\u201d Apodaca said. \u201cI don\u2019t think she was expecting it to be a war like that. Maybe she was expecting \u2014 I mean what was the odds? That\u2019s what she was expecting. I saw it when she walked out. I looked at her face when she was walking out and was like, \u2018Oh, she thinks she just has this. For sure.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Though she only has five professional MMA fights, Apodaca competed often in the amateur ranks, and at 32 years old, she knows time is ticking on her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ll be fighting top 10 soon,\u201d Apodaca said. \u201cI am 32, and I knew that taking this fight, it was like an escalated path, and I was ready for that. Because I do believe in my skill. So in a year, that\u2019s where I want to be, fighting top 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
But regardless of how soon she gets her crack at the top of the bantamweight division, mostly Apodaca wants people to give her her respect after Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be overlooked anymore,\u201d Apodaca said. \u201cI think I did prove that tonight. I\u2019ve been the underdog the last three fights, I think \u2014 which is fine, underdog city \u2014 but I think that now people will understand that I\u2019m more of a threat than they thought.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Apodaca did it. She actually did it. On Tuesday night, Apodaca faced Bella Mir in the main…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396,14855],"class_list":["post-869298","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","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869298","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=869298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}