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Former UFC champ Carla Esparza selling her Harley to 'make ends meet'
Former UFC strawweight champion Carla Esparza is selling her 2015 Harley-Davidson motorcycle but not because she wants to get rid of the prize she received for winning "The Ultimate Fighter" season 20.
It's because she needs the money.
Esparza detailed her financial woes in an Instagram post on Friday, where she said that due to a long layoff after shoulder surgery and only one fight in the past year, she's selling the motorcycle to hopefully keep her head above water with money running short.
"If anyone is interested, I am selling my 2015 Harley Breakout that I won on The Ultimate Fighter 20 ‘A Champion Will be Crowned’. Brand new (bc of my shoulder surgery), purchase price was $19,799. Going with highest bid OBO.
"It's very unfortunate that I am selling this bike not because I want to, but because I have to in order to make ends meet. After having a year off from shoulder surgery (injury obtained at UFC 185), taking a short-notice fight, and then 8 months since that fight, I literally have enough in my bank account to pay for 2 more months of bills," Esparza said in the post.
The former champion fell to Joanna Jedrzejczyk in 2015 and that's where she suffered the shoulder injury that forced her into surgery to repair the damage.
Esparza sat out until April 2016, where she finally returned to action with a unanimous decision win over Juliana Lima in a bout she took on short notice.
Since that time, Esparza says that she's been asking the UFC to book her for another fight but the only offer she received was a showdown with former title contender Claudia Gadelha.
According to Esparza, she hoped for a different opponent so she could knock off the ring rust first and then face the No. 1-ranked strawweight afterwards. Gadelha just recently returned from her loss to Jedrzejczyk to face unranked fighter Cortney Casey in a bout she won by unanimous decision
The former strawweight champion says she just wanted the chance to get a full training camp under her belt after the shoulder surgery and recovery time, but her request has fallen on deaf ears.
"I need to fight and have been asking for a fight for so long, multiple times a week. I know I can make my run again but I also know that after being off for so long that I'm not ready to fight a title contention fight right away and all I'm being offered is the No. 1 contender (Gadelha), whom I've accepted and been scheduled to fight two times in the past," Esparza said.
"I'm 100-percent down for that fight. I just asked for just one non-title contention fight with an actual camp after having so much time off from injury and the result is being benched for eight months and still no word of a fight, not even a whisper."
The result of the inactivity is Esparza running short on funds just two years after defeating Rose Namajunas to become the first ever UFC women's strawweight champion.
"I'm at a loss of what to do. When I make my run, my intention is to win not because I'm being forced to when I'm not ready," Esparza said.
"Just frustrated and sad."
