PHOENIX – When she got into “The Ultimate Fighter 26” house after 10 years of waiting tables, Emily Whitmire was ready to quit her job as a server.

Two UFC fights and 18 months later, though, Whitmire (3-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) is still balancing her MMA training with her regular job. In fact, while she did take a pass on working Super Bowl night in order to avoid getting sick, she was working up until two weeks before her UFC on ESPN 1 meeting with Aleksandra Albu (3-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC).

“The money is just too good to leave,” Whitmire told MMAjunkie during a media day ahead of the preliminary card bout, which streams on ESPN+ from Talking Stick Resort Arena. “The people I work for are really amazing, and it’s just a fun gig. So if I can go in and make an extra few hundred bucks on any given night, it’s like, why wouldn’t I do it? And the people I work with are fun. So, after the rush, you’re just hanging out with your friends having fun.”

Whitmire will snap a bit of an involuntary layoff with Sunday’s strawweight match. Her most recent fight was last July, when she took a unanimous decision over Jaime Moyle, and Whitmire had been asking for a fight. She actually got offered a matchup that interested her, but it was on short-notice, so she chose to wait.

“I was enjoying myself, just training, getting better, so it wasn’t time lost or anything,” Whitmire said. “But I’m definitely ready to get the ball rolling again.”

When it comes to time away from the cage, though, Albu has Whitmire beat. She hasn’t fought since July 2017, when she beat Kailin Curran to keep her unbeaten record. With only three pro MMA bouts, Whitmire doesn’t have much to go off of to analyze her opponent’s game, but an alternative source of footage didn’t necessarily impress her.

“I think she does have some good parts to her game, but I think there are some holes I saw in that fight (with Curran),” Whitmire said. “I know it’s been a long time, but I did see her post some videos on Instagram, where she still had that kind of same stiff, chin-up-in-the-air movement.

“So I didn’t really see a big change or movement there, where fighters that usually take that time off you can usually see a little bit of that crispness, a little bit more smoothness, a little bit better footwork. I didn’t really see that in those videos. She could be posting old videos, I don’t know.”

Whitmire felt a lot of pressure on herself going into her last bout, coming off a submission loss to fellow “TUF 26” castmate Gillian Robertson in her octagon debut and a loss to Roxanne Modafferi during the show. Now, carrying the momentum of her first UFC win, Whitmire doesn’t want to repeat that narrative.

“I don’t want to be in that same position again where I have a 50-50 record where the next fight I have all that pressure on me again,” Whitmire said. “This is a good matchup for myself, and I think if, for some reason, the night doesn’t go my way, that means I definitely (expletive)’d up somewhere.

“Because I know how hard I’ve been training. I know what I’ve been doing in the gym. I know how my sparring rounds have been going. People that are normally putting it on me, I’m starting to put it on them. So as long as I keep that intensity and I keep that pace, I think I’ll come out with the win.”

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