Ashlee Evans-Smith is a Bantamweight fighter out of Sub-Fighter MMA in Laguna Hills, California. She has been fighting pro since 2013 and holds a 3-0 record. Her three pro fights have been in the CFA versus Tori Adams and Fallon Fox respectively and most recently against Marciea Allen in the World Series of Fighting.

It was announced recently that Ashlee would step in on short notice to fight Raquel Pennington as a replacement for an injured Holly Holm.

I sat down with Ashlee and got her take on being called to the biggest stage in the MMA world.

Aaron Robbins: Ashlee thank you for talking with me today. So, how did it feel to get the call from the UFC?

Ashlee Evans-Smith: “For me it was a delayed reaction. It didn’t set in until about two days later. I was driving home from training and it set in really hard, just the reality of what’s about to happen and how my career is about to take off. I know this sounds mushy, but I literally cried tears of joy. That doesn’t happen a lot, something has to make you extremely happy to make you cry. I don’t know how many years it has been since that has happened to me. That’s how extremely happy I was.”

AR: How did the call happen, was it a call from your manager or the UFC?

AES: “I was signed with WSOF so the first call came from Ali (Abdel-Aziz). He explained that the UFC had called them and asked the WSOF to release me, and that right there was an extreme compliment. I was thinking to myself ‘what is he going to do’, and Ali said of course he was going to release me. He told me it would be ridiculous to hold me back from my dream. He said I was released and wished me the best of luck, he tried to explain some of the details, but at that point I had pretty much zoned out. I knew I was going to take the fight no matter what. After that I called my coach and let him know; he said of course we are going to take the fight. I went through all the paper-work to be released and signed my contract to fight.”

AR: Being contracted with WSOF means you have been training to fight in case they call you, but with this situation you won’t be able to have a full training camp. How is your conditioning going into the fight with Pennington?

AES: “I live my life like a professional athlete. I do have a side job, I bartend, I need to support myself especially since the WSOF weren’t fighting me consistently to say the least. I was kind of collecting dust there for a while, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t train every day. I was doing what I had to do to stay ready. It was pretty ironic because I was just telling someone the other day that I was feeling discouraged with how it was going financially with World Series. I have to take care of myself, I’m a grown woman, and here I am relying on my MMA career to be my full-time job, and I can’t depend on that. I was bartending a lot and training less, but that holds no weight on how I’m going to perform for this fight.”

AR: Your last fight was on June 21st against Marciea Allen; remind the fans of that fight.

AES: “That fight was actually pretty interesting. There was a lot of hype surrounding the fight because my previous fight was my win over Fallon (Fox), and everybody was saying oh I can’t wait to see what she does next and things like that. There was an unfortunate event that occurred before the Allen fight that left me with 14 stitches in my leg. Not a lot of people know this, but it’s ok to say it now. I’m not making any excuses, but it was unfortunate because I couldn’t spar or grapple for three weeks leading up to the fight. When you watch the fight you can see that I’m not stepping into my punches that much, and my range is off. Everything was off. It took me two rounds to warm up, and in the third I finally finished her. That was an example of not being able to train correctly, and was discouraging because I didn’t get to show everybody what I am capable of. I’m not a one-trick-pony. I didn’t just beat Fallon and that’s it. I’m here to stay and to make waves. I did get the W and that’s great, but I would’ve liked to display my skills a little better.”

AR: How did you end up with 14 stitches in your leg?

AES: “It’s so silly. I was in strength and conditioning practice and we were doing box-jumps from our knees. I’m just not the best jumper, so I fell off the box and the metal edge of the box stabbed me. Any picture you see of me now there is this gnarly two-piece scar from it.”

AR: Is it a pain in the ass that so many people associate you with the Fallon Fox fight?

AES: “It’s not a pain in the ass, it is what it is. It really helped me out, to say the least, in my career. I’m appreciative of it. I’m grateful that I took that fight for a lot of reasons; because of that fight my name is more well known. If I’m a nobody because I’m not in the UFC, what was I before the Fallon fight? Now my name is associated with something. It’s like they say, any news is good news. As long as you’re talking about me I don’t really care. It doesn’t matter to me because I know that I’m going to do more impressive things than beat a trans-gender.”

AR: Tell us a little about your gym and who is getting you ready for your fight with Raquel.

AES: “Now that we’ve gotten the news I’m training twice a day. I’m training three times a day if you count all the long-ass runs I have to take to make this weight. They called me three weeks before the fight, and ever since then we have been doing double days. My coaches are Adam Lynn and Russ Miura they are amazing Black Belts, and they have their own fighting careers. We are over at Sub-Fighter MMA in Laguna Hills, California. We are really a fighter’s gym. You come in and our double-end bag is held up with duct tape, and our ring is made out of chains, but we have great fighters. We have quite a few Bellator fighters out of that gym, and now I’m fighting in the UFC. I’ve been undefeated since I started training there. I really love my gym and all my teammates. They are mostly all Light and Middleweights, which is perfect for me. We work our butts off. We train every aspect of MMA. We have wrestling, boxing, Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, everything. This will be my last hard week of training, and I fly out on Tuesday.”

AR: Is your weight on point?

AES: “Define on point. (Laughs) They called me with three weeks notice, and unless you are the type of fighter that walks around really close to your fight weight you are going to have to cut to make weight. I’m going to be able to make weight without depleting myself. I have a great nutritionist who is keeping me on task. My weight won’t be an issue. I have never missed weight, and I never will.”

AR: So what should we expect from your fight with Pennington?

AES: “Rocky is a great fighter. I really like her as a person too. I’ve talked with her a handful of times just in passing. I like the way she carries herself, and she is a good sport. As far as watching tape on her technique and skill; we have watched it all. Her striking is good. That is probable her strong point, but it’s not the crispest, it’s not intimidating. My ground game is definitely better than hers. I have a good game plan for this fight, just like I do for every fight. So what are the keys to success for this fight? The key to winning any fight is to stick with the game plan, and I am always going to stay with the game plan. My ground fighting is better and I’m very tenacious. I’m going to grind her out. I only have three weeks to train for this fight, so she might be thinking my cardio won’t be on point. To me it doesn’t matter. I’m the type of fighter, wrestler, and person that when you put me in the cage I can do anything for 15 to 25 minutes. I’m going to have great conditioning and endurance for this fight. I’m going to grind her. If it’s a slug-match then I’ll slug with her for 15 minutes. I’m going to come out on top in the end.”

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