UFC: Hong Kong fighter Ramona Pascual poised to make history and hopes this is just the beginning
- Featherweight will become first woman from the city to fight in the UFC when she faces Josiane Nunes in Las Vegas this weekend
- ‘She’s a knockout artist, and I’m coming in and I haven’t been tested and people want to see what I’m about. It’s gonna be exciting,’ says Pascual
There’s history waiting for Ramona Pascual this weekend as she becomes the first woman from Hong Kong to fight in the UFC, and it’s a reward for all the years of heartache and pain and sacrifice that have gone into her career as a fighter.
The 33-year-old, who knows she “belongs in the UFC”, is confident that she should be “fighting high-calibre opponents”, also wants the world to know that is not enough.
Pascual (6-2) has stepped with little more than a week’s notice to fight Brazilian Josiane Nunes (8-1) on the UFC Vegas 49 card on Sunday (Hong Kong time) at featherweight.
The fight will mark the high point of a career that has seen her battle back from injuries that threatened her progress, and early losses that sowed the seeds of doubt that this was even the right thing to be doing.
But Pascual has always been full of hope – and no one in Hong Kong right now needs to be reminded just how important that can be. She has taken herself from Southorn Stadium to Seoul to Zhengzhou to Los Mochis, Mexico, to find fights, and to develop the sporting talent she first showed in Muay Thai and as a Hong Kong rugby squad player.
And Pascual is on a 4-0 run that includes two first-round finishes – via submission and via TKO – since she moved to Las Vegas to make the UFC matchmakers take notice. It’s worked.
“I was preparing for a different fight, actually,” Pascual said. “So I wasn’t coming off the couch or anything. In a 24-hour period I got the text from my manager saying ‘I might have a fight for you in the UFC. It’s a long shot, but I’ll let you know’ to 12 hours later being handed the paperwork. So it was crazy.”