WASHINGTON – UFC women’s bantamweight contender Aspen Ladd says she has put her weight cutting dramas firmly behind her. She just wishes everyone else could do the same, too.
Ladd said she was feeling “pretty darned good” as she prepares for her final cut down to the 136-pound bantamweight limit for her fight with Russian Yana Kunitskaya at UFC on ESPN 7, and said she didn’t foresee any issues ahead of weigh-in day on Friday.
“We woke up at 143.4 (pounds), still hydrated,” she said at a Thursday media day. “We’ve gotta go cut after this and rest all day, and go heat off the rest if there is any.”
Ladd’s last interaction with the official scale wasn’t a happy occasion. Clearly in significant discomfort, Ladd successfully made weight for her bout against Germaine de Randamie at UFC on ESPN+ 13 in July. But she gained a whopping 18 pounds between weigh-in day and fight night, prompting the California State Athletic Commission to suspend her bantamweight license until she provides “extensive medical documentation” to prove she’s capable of fighting safely in the division.
However, Ladd has no such barriers to competition elsewhere, and she is cleared and ready to fight at bantamweight this weekend. And, perhaps understandably following all the drama surrounding her recent weight cuts, she admitted she’s grown a little tired of the constant questions about her weight.
“It comes up a lot – frequently,” she said. “The last one was pretty rough, but I still made the weight, so it’s something I still get asked a lot. It’s kind of like a redundant question. Like, ‘How do you feel in fight week?’ You hear it 5 million times. So it’s kinda boring.”
Ladd says her confidence ahead of weigh-in day comes from a more integrated approach to her weight-management in the lead-up to fight week, citing the closer working relationship between her team and the sports scientists at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas.
Now Ladd’s focus is firmly on claiming victory over Kunitskaya on Saturday night, and she says she won’t let her recent quick-fire TKO loss at the hands of de Randamie affect her confidence heading into the contest.
“I kind of look at this thing regardless as a marathon, not a sprint,” she said. “It’s a rough night, don’t get me wrong – it’s not fun. Nobody likes to lose, and this is your career, your job. But at the same time, you can’t get too headcase-y over it because at that point, it’s on to the next. You’ve gotta get ready and get back on the horse.”
Following her failed appeal against what she perceived to be an unfairly swift intervention by referee Herb Dean to stop her last contest, Ladd says she’s leaving the past in the past and focusing on the job in hand this weekend.
“I’ve put a lot of that behind me and out in the media if you want to go and find it, kinda thing. But it’s really not worth talking about at this point,” she said. “As far as when I have a fight, it’s the end of the world – nothing exists beyond it. So that’s the only point I’m trying to get to, because nothing matters after that. I need to go out and perform, and the next step in your life can start (after that).”
UFC DC: Aspen Ladd says weight-cut questions are 'kinda boring' ahead of Yana Kunitskaya bout
