Hong Kong MMA star Ramona Pascual moving to Las Vegas chasing UFC dream – ‘I need to know, now is the time to test myself’

The 32-year-old heads to the US this month in hope of furthering her career after signing with Conor McGregor’s management team

Pascual says goodbye to UFC’s China Academy at Shanghai Performance Institute – ‘if I’m going to go down, it’s going to be in a blaze of glory’

4-MIN READ4-MIN

Ramona Pascual signs her contract with Conor McGregor’s management company, Paradigm Sports. Photo: Instagram

Published: 12:18pm, 4 Feb 2021Updated: 12:25pm, 4 Feb 2021

At this stage in her life and the fight game, mixed martial arts has become a philosophical journey for Ramona Pascual.

“It becomes spiritual,” said the 32-year-old, who had her first Muay Thai fight in 2011. “How do I transcend what I am physically capable of, or what I am mentally capable of? How do I push past set limits and how do I go beyond that? That’s deeply spiritual I feel, in every way. ”

Hong Kong’s quintessential female MMA fighter (4-2) stands on the precipice of another life-changing dive in the deep end. At the end of this board is Las Vegas, the fight capital of the world.

Pascual returned to Hong Kong from the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s state-of-the-art Performance Institute facility in Shanghai, where she had been based again since October via its Academy Programme. This was Pascual’s second stint at the 93,000-square foot, US$13 million compound, the world’s largest MMA training ground when it opened in June of 2019.

Her first endeavour was cut short by the coronavirus last year, but she signed with UFC icon Conor McGregor’s management team – Paradigm Sports – in August, giving us a hint of things to come.