UFC: Loma Lookboonmee brings eye of the ‘Tiger’ to Fight Island
- UFC’s first Thai fighter represents in-form Tiger Muay Thai gym against veteran Jinh Yu Frey
- ‘I’ve always felt I’ve been kind of chubby. But I have made tons of gains strength wise,’ says Loma
The UFC matchmakers have not been afraid to throw Loma Lookboonmee into the deep end of their strawweight division’s talent pool.
Last time out the Thai prospect (4-2) faced a veteran warrior in the 13th-ranked Angela Hill (12-9), and was duly given a three-round working over. This weekend at UFC on ESPN: Holm vs Aldana, they’ve pitched Loma in against another American veteran in Jinh Yu Frey (9-5), a one-time Invicta atomweight champion who also brings with her a wealth of experience.
But Loma says she knew coming in to her UFC career that life with the world’s leading MMA promotion would be challenge after challenge, and the only way forward was to face them as they fall her way.
“My knee-jerk reaction was, ‘Man, I’m getting screwed over!’” laughs the 24-year-old, speaking to SCMP MMA from Abu Dhabi’s “Fight Island”.
“All these tough opponents with tons of experience. But as I thought about it, these are good opponents for me, they bring a lot of technical things I have to figure out. If I want to be good in MMA, I have to figure these things out anyway and there is no better time to do it than now.”