Felice Herrig on Paige VanZant: 'I'm going to knock her out'
After being a part of "The Ultimate Fighter" and winning her first official UFC bout in December, strawweight Felice Herrig is only now becoming familiar to many UFC fans. The 30-year-old is young but has fought professionally in MMA for six years, and much longer when kickboxing and boxing are taken into account.
All those years of gym and fight night wars take a toll, even on young fighters. Unfortunately, Herrig -- who fights Paige VanZant on the April 18 UFC on FOX card -- says she is suffering from some memory loss as a result of being a fighter.
"I have, like, this thing called, like, rapid brain cell loss, where I think that fighting is catching up to me now," she recently told Submission Radio.
"I can't remember simple little things, but I remember my childhood friend's dog's name. I remember the dumb, trivial stuff like that (laughs)."
Of course, brain damage is no laughing matter, but fighters as tough as Herrig usually brush off warning signs like that. All too often, so do sanctioning athletic commissions.
Herrig's aggressive striking style more than likely contributed to her taking extra damage. "The thing is, I've always been a brawler," she said.
"Especially when I fight. I fought kickboxing and boxing, [and] I would take so many shots to the head and not care. I'd be like, 'Oh, you hit me once? OK, I'm going to come back 10 times.' So I would stay in the pocket and I would let people hit me because, honestly, I didn't care. It didn't affect me. It didn't hurt me. But now, I'm like, 'Oh, is this catching up to me?'"
Still, Herrig fights on. Indeed, she's quite confident that she'll be able to beat the rising star, VanZant, in Newark on April 18.
Herrig called VanZant "predictable," in contrast to herself. "I think the only thing predictable about me is that I can beat her anywhere the fight goes," she claimed.
"I know I'm a better striker than her. I know I'm a better wrestler than her. I know I'm better on the ground than her. I know I'm physically stronger than her. I know I have more experience than her."
Accordingly, Herrig plans to stop VanZant inside the distance of their scheduled three-round bout. "I don't see this fight going all the way," she surmised.
"I definitely see it being stopped, whether it's by the ref, or the doctor, or I don't even know if her corner is allowed to throw in the towel anymore, but it's not going 15 minutes, I will tell you that ... I'm going to knock her out in round one or round two."
