Jessica Andrade enters UFC 295 looking to snap the longest losing skid of her 36-fight MMA career, and said that personal issues could have affected her recent performances.
“Bate Estaca” dominated Cynthia Calvillo, Amanda Lemos and Lauren Murphy to put herself close to another title shot in the UFC before getting finished by Erin Blanchfield, Yan Xiaonan and Tatiana Suarez in 2023. The Mackenzie Dern bout this Saturday in New York will be her fifth this year, and Andrade explains why she’s staying so active as of late despite the negative results.
“This year I had my divorce that has taken a lot of my money in paying for lawyers and things here and there, so I ended up taking five fights,” Andrade said on MMA Fighting’s Trocação Franca podcast. “It will be over this year, God willing, and I’ll be fine. [I fought five times in 2023] because of that, because of the divorce. I had to spend a lot of money with lawyers in Brazil, it’s too much bureaucracy.”
The former UFC strawweight champion added that “maybe my losses also came because of that, for not being with my head 100 percent during the fight.”
“I was going well and then I made a mistake and ended up losing the fight,” Andrade said. “I need this victory now, of course, and I’m coming for it. Maybe next year I have the chance to fight five times again. Why not? But I think the UFC will slow things down for me [laughs]. But the plan is to have the opportunity to win two or three more fights and then ask for the belt, to fight whoever is the champion.”
Dern enters UFC 295 on a career surge after mauling Angela Hill for five rounds in her most recent bout in May. Andrade feels she’s just hungrier though.
“Poor Mackenzie, it’s on her now,” Andrade said with a laugh. “This pressure of possibly losing four in a row is complicated. I lost three straight and I can’t let that happen. I’m hungrier than ever. I’m on a different moment in my career that is making me think about the things that are priority for me. This is my 27th UFC fight and I have to change my game, I have to change my strategy to surprise my opponents.”
Andrade said that Dern is “a tough opponent and is coming off a great win over Angela Hill”, a fighter she considers “an excellent striker”, but this camp felt different for the Brazilian. She actually ended up working at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, working with Suarez, the woman who handed her her most recent loss.
“I had a lot of good training at Xtreme Couture with girls that could end up being my opponents in the future and that was great for me,” Andrade said. “Tatiana Suarez helped me a lot in this camp. The girls emulated Mackenzie so I could be ready for this fight. The things I’m planning in my mind, the nights of sleep dreaming about this fight, it’s going to be a knockout. I don’t want to leave it to the judges. I know it’s very hard to get the submission, especially against Mackenzie [laughs], so I really want to go for the knockout.”
