Products You May Like
“The majority of my career, I’ve been at the very top of my game,” VanZane said. “I signed to the UFC when I was 19 years old, so I know how successful I’ve been. I have five UFC wins, four of those are finishes. The one (loss) I broke my arm in it, and the other fight I lost to Rose (Namajunas), who is a champion. I know how tough I am, and I don’t think that my opponents necessarily count me out because I think they’re smarter than that. It’ll take a while to really win the fans over, but I think it just doesn’t matter. I just keep fighting on.”
Part of her long journey back to the Octagon included several setbacks with that broken arm suffered against Jessica-Rose Clark. Since then, she has come up against several surgeries, re-breaks and setbacks that kept her out of action.
While that amount of issues with one body part might make a person rightly doubt whether it could take the punishment required to compete, VanZant’s confidence didn’t waver. Having the sport continuously taken away from her allowed her to really miss fighting, training and the grind that comes with it. Even though the injuries have been a consistent through line for the last few years, VanZant isn’t shying away from the conversation. In truth, she’s not tired of talking about it, either.
“It’s definitely a part of me,” she said. “I think it’s something that I can honestly say, ‘I know how tough I am,’ and you can never take that away from me. I shattered my arm in the middle of a fight and still won the entire third round with a shattered arm, and I think it’s something that I know going into another fight that if I were to have another serious injury, I’m not a quitter. You’ll never see me quitting because something hurts or I’m asking for a way out of the fight. It gives me a lot of mental toughness and mental strength to know I never have to question that.”