LAS VEGAS – Karolina Kowalkiewicz beat Diana Belbita with a unanimous decision Saturday on the preliminary card at UFC Fight Night 229 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
Take a look inside the fight with Kowalkiewicz, who won for the fourth straight time.
Diana Belbita vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz
Result: Karolina Kowalkiewicz def. Diana Belbita via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Updated records: Kowalkiewicz (17-7 MMA, 9-7 UFC), Belbita (15-8 MMA, 2-4 UFC)
Key stats: Kowalkiewicz went more than four years without a win during a five-fight skid, but now remarkably has won four in a row.
Kowalkiewicz on the fight's key moment
“She was very, very good – prepared for this fight. She’s a very tough girl. My game plan was to take her down, but I couldn’t take her down. Her defensive wrestling is very good and my offensive wrestling is not so good – but my standup is very good. So I had Plan B to fight with her in the standup.”
Kowalkiewicz on turning her skid around
“My motto is ‘Never give up.’ If something’s going wrong in your life, you don’t give up because this is your life. MMA is a very important part of my life. I had five losses. I had a very serious injury. But f*ck this, you know? I love this sport. I want to fight more. So I changed my whole life. I moved to Florida. I started training with coach (Marcos DaMatta) ‘Parrumpa,’ with coach Anderson (Franca). They believed in me from the beginning because I came to them and I had five losses. They said, ‘OK, we can train with you. Everything will be fine.’ And now everything is fine.”
Kowalkiewicz on what she wants next
“I don’t know. I need to ask coach ‘Parrumpa’ (what’s next) … Of course, let’s do this: UFC in Poland. I am ready. Polish fans are ready. We have a lot of great fighters: Jan Blachowicz, Mateusz Gamrut, Mateusz Rembecki and me, Karolina Kowalkiewicz. Let’s do this.”
To hear more from Kowalkiewicz, check out the video of the full post-fight interview above.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 229.
