UFC: Aspen Ladd gets third-round TKO after coach’s rousing speech – ‘don’t stop punching her’
- Ladd’s head coach Jim West delivers rousing motivational speech before third round in Washington
- American drops Yana Kunitskaya out of the gate and finishes her 33 seconds into final round
Going into the third round of her UFC on ESPN 7 fight against Yana Kunitskaya, Aspen Ladd’s coach was not happy.
Jim West fired off a barrage of expletives with his fighter on the stool, telling Ladd to “punch her and don’t stop f****** punching her” until she got the finish at the Capital One Arena in Washington.
It certainly worked. Ladd (9-1) dropped Kunitskaya (12-5, 1 no contest) with a left hook out of the gate and blitzed her for a TKO via ground and pound 33 seconds into the final round.
“I better freakin’ listen – if he’s seeing this, then he’s seeing this, I need to go. And I did,” Ladd said in her post-fight interview in the Octagon.
It was a great way for the 24-year-old to bounce back from the first loss of her career earlier this year, a knockout by top-ranked bantamweight contender Germaine de Randamie after a bad weight cut.