CASEY O’NEIL returns to the octagon this weekend with an unfamiliar taste in her mouth.
The Scottish-born Aussie makes her second outing of the year early on Sunday morning on a stacked UFC 296 card in Las Vegas.
But for the first time in her professional career, she’ll enter the cage having tasted defeat in her previous outing.
That defeat came at the hands of the recently departed Jennifer Maia at UFC 286 in March.
And, like most losses for fighters, it was a learning curve for the flyweight prospect.
She told SunSport: “[It was] a little bit of [a learning curve]. I probably haven’t thought about the loss since April, other than this week because I keep getting bloody asked about it.
“I’m not one of those fighters who says, ‘It’s not a loss, it’s a lesson’. It is a loss, I did lose.
“I wasn’t my best self that day and she won. I do take lessons from it, but it is a loss at the end of the day. Not a super positive thing.
“I definitely did a lot of reflection afterwards and I really looked back on everything that happened during the week, during the camp and during the fight.
“And I tried to put myself in those feelings and process what had happened and what went wrong so we can fix it moving forward.
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“That had never happened to me before so I was trying to figure out what had happened.”
O’Neil, 26, believes the brutal and honest self-reflection she did after defeat in London has bore fruit.
She added: “I think that we did that as a team and I think that I’m back to the old me and that I’m back better than ever. So I’m very excited to go out there and right my wrongs.”
O’Neil isn’t in any way shape or form bitter about the loss to Maia, she’s more annoyed she won’t be able to run it back with the Brazilian.
“I’m super disappointed Jennifer Maia is not with the UFC though because I would have loved to have run that back,” she said. “It still don’t really understand why they parted ways.
“I always want revenge on a loss, I even wanted revenge on my two amateur losses and I never got that. So it feels like it’s something that happens to me a loss.
“I wish her all the best, but I would’ve liked to have fought her at my 100 per cent self because I don’t feel like I was that night.”
Looking to hand O’Neil her second straight loss is former KSW flyweight queen Ariane Lipski, who will bid to put together her first three-fight win streak in MMA‘s top promotion.
‘King’ said of the Brazilian: “I think that it’s very hard to get into the UFC, so I’ll never be too harsh on somebody that’s made it all this way because it is hard.
“Everyone that’s on the regional scene is hungry. So if you’ve made it all the way through that and made it to the UFC and stuck around as long as she has then you have to be tough.
“But, in saying that, I think that her best wins I would beat on my worst day. I’m not trying to sound cocky or horrible, I just believe that.
“I think that she is going to get into a fight with me and she’s going to be surprised by the way I fight. I think I’m very in-your-face and I don’t go away.
“You can hit me and I’ll keep coming. I’m gonna take you down, I’m going to get in your face and I’m going to make the fight dirty.
“I don’t think she likes a dirty fight. I think she likes to stand out at distance and pick people apart and point fight.
“But you can’t point fight me because I’ll be in your face the whole time. I hope she’s got some good cardio and she’s ready for that because I’m going to bring a ferocious pace for her.”
One thing defeat to Maia hasn’t taken away from O’Neil is the confidence she has in her skillset, which she ultimately believes will be too much for Lipski to handle.
She said: “I think [I finish her] about ten seconds after I take her down or whenever I crack her on the feet.
“I would be happy with a first-round finish, maybe it’ll go to the second round.
“I think I’ve got three second-round finishes on my record. So that’s a safe bet with me as well.”
