Virna Jandiroba lays out path back to UFC strawweight title shot
· Yahoo Sports
LAS VEGAS – Virna Jandiroba's dreams of one day becoming a UFC champion did not die in her title loss last October.
Jandiroba (22-4 MMA, 8-4 UFC) is still gunning for the UFC strawweight title following her competitive decision loss to Mackenzie Dern for the vacant title at UFC 321. The 37-year-old Brazilian starts her campaign back to the belt this Saturday, as she makes her return against Tabatha Ricci in the co-main event of UFC Fight Night 272 (Paramount+) at the Meta APEX.
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Jandiroba took a lot from her defeat to Dern, and is motivated to get back to the top.
"I took 15 days to rest, and then I was immediately back to training," Jandiroba told reporters in Portuguese at Wednesday's media day. "I'm very good at restarting, to tell you the truth. It's a restart. I feel good. I don't feel defeated by the defeat, and I know I came out much bigger than what I came into the fight, so I take that from the fight. I take that experience of fighting for the belt with a lot of focus and determination."
Jandiroba believes a solid win over Ricci (12-3 MMA, 7-3 UFC), and maybe one or two more, should get her back in another title fight.
"I'm ready to fight for the belt whenever, but that doesn't depend on me," Jandiroba said. "To be conservative, and it all depends on my performances, that's very important, but I'd say two wins, and I could be fighting for the belt again. To be conservative, two or three more wins."
As far as the challenge itself, Jandiroba respects what Ricci has done in her MMA career and how she's developed her game to be one of the most well-rounded fighters today at strawweight.
"Tabatha is very good in MMA as a whole," Jandiroba said. "She's very good at combining the different aspects of MMA, but I'm more than ready for it. I know in some specifics I'm probably going to have an advantage over her, but her overall game is very fluid. She's good at the whole thing. I think that she's at a different point in her career than mine. She's coming off a win, so maybe she has a little more confidence, which can be useful for me, but we'll see when the fight comes.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Virna Jandiroba lays out path back to UFC strawweight title shot