Sara McMann said fans might be getting ahead of themselves in pairing her with fellow UFC signee Alexis Davis.

While they were both recently announced as UFC signees, it might not be against each other.

“Truthfully, I have no idea,” she told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “I’m kind of leaning toward the opposite because when they announced “Miesha (Tate) vs. Cat (Zingano), they announced them against each other. When they announced me and Alexis, they didn’t give us opponents.”

A source close to Davis (13-5 MMA, 0-0 UFC) believed the fighter would meet McMann (6-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) out of the gate, but said nothing is official.

That would be news to McMann, who was set to make her big-show debut in Strikeforce before a knee injury forced her to withdraw from an ill-fated event this past November. She was transferred to the UFC when Strikeforce folded this past month.

McMann said she tries to ignore the sport’s rumor mill when it comes to her future. Instead of winding herself up about her next step, she entrusts her career to her manager, Monte Cox.

She’s also wary of what’s said about her career by those in the MMA media, whom she believes is more concerned with breaking down fighters than building them up.

“When I’m doing stuff with wrestling, it’s almost always toward building someone up and representing them well,” she said. “It’s almost a different spirit. Sometimes I think with the MMA media, I feel a little more on-guard. They’re going to take something I say that’s one part of the conversation, and twist it into some drama-fest.”

Less than six months into her tenure with UFC parent Zuffa, McMann already has encountered some drama. She went on the defensive when women’s bantamweight champion and fellow Olympian Ronda Rousey asserted that she turned down a chance to fight for the title at UFC 157. McMann said she never received an offer.

The Olympic wrestling silver medalist didn’t even think she was in title contention when fans asked her who her first UFC opponent would be.

“I know people say, ‘Sara needs to fight Ronda,’ but when it comes to the matchups and what I’m getting told, I don’t get that impression,” McMann said of a potential fight with the Olympic judo bronze medalist. “I’m still lower on the rankings, and I’d never fought in Strikeforce. I didn’t have any fights on the bigger stages, so it doesn’t seem to be how the UFC works.”

Still, if McMann and Davis are to meet, the two would be on a short list to fight Rousey, who defends her title against Liz Carmouche next week at the UFC’s Feb. 23 pay-per-view event. According to UFC President Dana White, 10 women are in the bantamweight division, which means anyone could be a fight or two away from a shot at the belt.

At the same time, the entire division is in wait-and-see mode. White said the UFC is auditioning women’s MMA and isn’t keen on making long-term plans.

Rousey and Carmouche’s performance inside the cage and at the box office could be the deciding factor on whether women continue to fight in the cage. Many MMA observers believe that a Rousey loss would prompt the UFC to end its experiment, but McMann doesn’t believe that’s the case.

“Even if she did lose, she could still sell fights, and she could still be popular in MMA,” she said. “I think there are a lot of other strong fighters out there, so if the UFC pushed other people, I think they would get a positive response.”

McMann could be one of those people, especially if she wins when she steps into the octagon for the first time. A fight between two Olympic medalists would be an easy sell for the UFC, and McMann feels she would fare well against Rousey.

“I’m hard to submit,” she said, referring to the champ’s submission skills and string of armbar victories. “I think that alone will make it a really exciting fight.”

But her manager is the one steering her career.

“I’m of the that you just show up to wrestling tournaments, and I’ve had the No. 1 in the first round of the world championships several years, so really it doesn’t matter to me what the order is,” McMann said. “But I know that for the business of making money, the order does matter. How you build yourself up and how you present yourself, that’s what I pretty much leave to Monte, because I’m not really good at that. I just fight.

“I tell Monte that I will train myself to become the absolute best I can, and whoever is next, I will train to beat them.”

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