Cynthia Calvillo steps back into the Octagon at UFC Fight Night Phoenix, facing Cortney Casey in a women’s strawweight division affair.
The fighter missed weight for her last bout at UFC Fight Night Buenos Aires, but Calvillo says a not too publicly discussed issue that a lot of female fighters go through is what lead to the miss.
“Honestly, I think my body just changed and went through a lot of changes (from) having that break and not fighting for so long. As a female athlete, sometimes you just don’t get you’re menstrual period…which means that you won’t retain water…you don’t have to deal with the hormones and craziness. I was kind of like that and once I had the long layoff, I kind of went through a regular cycle again and it happened to be that it is something I needed to do with this fight camp…well the last fight camp and this fight camp to because it could be at the same time. I never experienced anything like that and you actually do retain water. Since I get weird talking about it because nobody wants to talk about this kind of stuff, but it’s a realm thing. I’ve never experienced it before…like in a fight camp and in a fight week, so it was really hard for me to deal with. It was just the technique that we used for the weight cut, so we’re just gonna switch some things up this camp…for this fight week,” says Calvillo in an exclusive interview with Fightful’s James Lynch.
Calvillo came in at 118 pounds for the bout, which is two pounds over the strawweight weight limit of 116 pounds.
One thing Calvillo knows heading into Phoenix is that a win over Casey will put the fighter into the strawweight title mix.
“I think for sure…hopefully after beating Cortney Casey, that will move me up to fight towards the top ten for ranked fighters because she’s number ten. So (a win) will help me get higher, I know there’s other people in there and they’re waiting for the opportunity. So you have Jessica Andrade, who’s gonna fight Rose Namajunas (UFC 237). We have Tatiana Suarez in there and you gotta throw Nina Ansaroff after she beat Claudia (Gadelha), so I know that there’s some matches to be made there before I get there. You never know, I stay training all year round. If a fight falls out, chances are that I’ll step up and be like ‘hey, I’m right here.’ So I definitely do believe that…I seen how fast I can move and I think that if I just keep winning in impressive ways and I want to have eyes on me so that I can definitely get that title shot,” says Calvillo.
UFC Fight Night Phoenix takes place on Sunday, February 17 from the Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix, Arizona with Francis Ngannou and Cain Velasquez headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which airs live on ESPN.
