And that’s exactly who the world saw last time out, in fight number three for Loma with the Las Vegas-based promotion. The 25-year-old from Buriram (5-2) faced Jinh Yu Frey (10-6) – a former Invicta FC atomweight champion – and she pounded the American around the cage on the way to a unanimous points decision that read 30-27, 30-27 and a questionable 29-28 on the cards.

Loma was all elbows and knees and flashes of fury, and she consigned the previous unanimous points loss to Hill (13-9) to history.

“I have learned some lessons the hard way,” Loma explained. “I learned to focus more on what I can do than on what I can’t do. That was the problem with the Angela fight. I wasn’t thinking the right way and I wasn’t being me. If I could go back in time and have that fight again, I think I would be ‘Loma’ again and beat that Angela girl.”

UFC 261: Namajunas says Zhang ‘so strange to me’ after blanking her

This weekend Thailand’s first and so far only UFC fighter returns to action deep down on the UFC Vegas 25 card inside the Apex facility. She faces American Sam Hughes (5-2), and will be hoping to take another step forward as she adapts to life as an MMA fighter, after transitioning from a dominant and storied Muay Thai career.

Both fighters – aged 25 and 28, respectively – are obviously being tested out by the UFC, to gauge both what they have to give now, and what they might bring to the party. Hence we saw Loma up against the 36-year-old Hill then the 35-year-old Frey, while Hughes’ UFC debut came on a week’s notice against the 31-year-old Tecia Torres (12-5), with the veteran American taking a TKO (doctor stoppage) after an errant eye poke rendered Hughes unable to continue.

Hughes was a title contender on the US domestic scene and has three submissions in her pro career so far.

“I have watched the tapes and I have prepared. It doesn’t matter how good she is at submissions, I think I am going to nail her,” Loma said. “I’ve never trained this hard before. I have got itchy knuckles. I just want to get this fight done. I want to get the win and get rid of this feeling, and keep on improving. I want to get home as I miss my dog so I’m just ready to rumble.”

Under the guidance of George Hickman and the team at Tiger Muay Thai in Phuket, Loma has spent five months tucked away training, and rounding out a skill set built on pure power in the clinch. There’s been work on her ground game – still the big question mark when it comes to Loma’s progression, but a work-in-progress given the way she bounced back from a Frey takedown in the third last time out.

“After I won I just came back here to Phuket and I have tried to push everything up a level, from my stand-up to my BJJ,” said Loma. “There is like a whole page of things I have to do every day that George has given me. It’s the way to get the best out of myself.

“I already have my signature way of fighting which everybody knows. Now I have to level up everything else. I have to do better on the ground. I have to be better at all the things I am learning with George.”

Loma had a unique way of celebrating her victory over Frey, on a UFC Fight Island 4 card held in Abu Dhabi. She took the money from her win and bought two new buffaloes for her father’s farm in Buriram, deep in the heartland of Muay Thai. Loma named the pair “Abu” and “Dhabi” to mark the occasion – and she hopes to add to the herd after this weekend.

“I think about this every day during training,” she said. “I have been visualising my winning and getting that fight bonus. And I know I can get that if I knock her down. So that’s my prediction. I will knock her down, I will get the bonus. Last time I used that money to buy those two buffalo for my dad. This time I will get that bonus and I will add more friends to the farm.”