Alivia Bierley<\/a>.<\/p>\nHer move from turning pro in 2024 to landing on the Contender Series did feel quick, Onley admits. \u201cIt does feel very fast,\u201d she told us, noting that her pro debut was June of 2024. \u201cWhich is not that long ago. I know that obviously the pool of women isn\u2019t as big as the men, so it\u2019s probably a little bit easier for me to get to the UFC, it\u2019s a little bit of a faster track. When I think about it, I\u2019ve had six fights in that time, and I\u2019ve had loads of different looks. I\u2019ve had really good strikers, more jiu-jitsu people, probably more strikers than jiu-jitsu people, but I\u2019ve had a lot of different looks. So I\u2019m really glad about that.\u201d Adding on her ammy career that was three or four years, she\u2019s had plenty of experience, but added \u201cit is a bit crazy to think that.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was even a chance she might have landed on the Contender Series last year, though that wasn\u2019t Summer Onley\u2019s aim. \u201cI didn\u2019t 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 \u2018yeah, okay, now if I get the call-up, I\u2019ll be a little bit more confident in my abilities.’\u201d<\/p>\n
After six fights and five finishes, \u201cI\u2019m glad it didn\u2019t happen sooner. It\u2019s even crazy now. Six fights in and two years down the line, if you\u2019d have said this two years ago I would have said \u2018no, it would take me longer.’\u201d<\/p>\n
As for her introduction to MMA, that was only 10 years ago. Her fianc\u00e9 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 \u201ca bit barbaric,\u201d but at the same time, \u201cI actually loved it straight away. So entertaining, very violent, very brutal. It\u2019s very raw, I realized that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2017, Onley got herself into jiu-jitsu, competed a bit, and after a few years, made the jump to mixed martial arts. \u201cI begged my coach at the time\u201d to have a fight, Onley added, admitting she only truly started training in MMA in mid-2019. \u201cEver since then, I\u2019ve just been winging it. I had my amateur debut, and I\u2019ve always said \u2018I just want to see how it goes. I just want to see how I do.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet as the wins began to pile up, Onley realized she could make a career out of MMA. \u201cI switched gyms in 2023 I think, to take it a lot more seriously. It\u2019s kind of gone from there. I had no expectations of myself when I started MMA, I just wanted to see how I\u2019d do. And now I\u2019m sat here, fighting for a UFC contract. It\u2019s just absolute madness. It\u2019s a real surreal moment for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch our full interview with Dana White\u2019s Contender Series Season 10 Week 9 bantamweight Summer Onley above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.K. bantamweight Summer Onley was woken up early one morning a number of weeks back to the news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":918730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,12059,4736,786,15810,15803,11877,15805,801,10280,785,2843,15808,5963,15804,15809,85,15806,787,15807],"class_list":["post-918729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bellator","tag-conor-mcgregor","tag-fighting","tag-gsp","tag-invicta","tag-jon-jones","tag-lfa","tag-martial-arts","tag-mixed-martial-arts","tag-mma","tag-one-championship","tag-one-fc","tag-pfl","tag-rizin","tag-ronda-rousey","tag-sports","tag-titan-fc","tag-ufc","tag-wsof"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918729","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=918729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}