Fighters have to fret about many issues throughout coaching camp and the week main as much as their combat, however keeping off a crazed stalker shouldn’t be one in every of them. Simply ask UFC girls’s flyweight contender, Amanda Ribas, who discovered the arduous method at UFC Vegas 89 final month that “being a fan” can imply one thing completely totally different to another person.
Ribas, who is likely one of the hottest feminine fighters on the UFC roster right this moment, lately headlined UFC Vegas 89 this previous March in opposition to former UFC girls’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas. It was Ribas’ return to flyweight and an enormous alternative for her to seize a win over a former champion and push herself nearer in the direction of title competition. On paper, it was her greatest combat so far.
Sadly, Ribas needed to cope with some exterior distractions throughout combat week in Las Vegas. In contrast to some fighters who might need unhealthy beef with their opponent or wrestle to make weight, Ribas was pressured to deal with her personal private stalker. One who pretended to be married to her and just about harassed her the whole week main as much as UFC Vegas 89.
“I don’t bear in mind his title, however he was a little bit of a loopy man,” Ribas lately instructed Ag. Struggle. “On the primary day, I arrived on the lodge — normally the followers are there for us to signal one thing, take an image — however this citizen was somewhat loopy. He stored screaming, ‘Stunning, lovely, lovely.’ That very same day, the man on the entrance desk known as my room and mentioned, ‘Amanda, Alex is right here eager to go upstairs.’ Besides that Alex is the title of my supervisor. I mentioned, ‘Hey, the sensei is right here now’. He went and mentioned a loopy final title, I mentioned, ‘I don’t know.’ I assumed that was sort of bizarre.
“The subsequent day, after we arrived once more on the reception, the younger man was ready. However he mentioned he wished to speak to me, and I mentioned I couldn’t in the intervening time. He spoke to my father, handed him a letter, a bracelet and a teddy bear. To date, so regular, as a result of it’s one thing that occurs. I even prefer it, I like to get presents. Then I learn within the letter that he was in love with me as a person since 2020, that he met me in Abu Dhabi. We went to do a little analysis. This younger man, on his social community, it was written that I used to be his spouse, that he lived in such and such a rustic and was going to maneuver to [my hometown] Varginha [Minas Gerais, Brazil]. There was an image of a teddy bear, everybody in my household, saying, ‘That is Marcelo, that is Arthur, that is Mirelly, that is Amanda, my spouse’. I had some loopy enterprise.”
The combat week weirdness didn’t cease there. Based on Ribas, her stalker even managed to sneak his well past safety and get into the UFC Efficiency Institute. As soon as once more, he began telling people who Ribas was his spouse. This finally made its approach to Ribas’ supervisor, Alex Davis, who knowledgeable UFC and was in a position to get safety to shadow Ribas for twenty-four hours a day.
“The opposite day, this citizen managed to get into the P.I., I don’t know the way, and he was telling people who I used to be his spouse,” Ribas laughed. “[My manager] Alex [Davis] discovered about it first, then he instructed me. Then he notified the UFC and so they left a safety guard with me 24 hours a day to be much more protected. It appears that evidently they discovered that he’s a fighter, and he couldn’t combat in an occasion as a result of he had taken a sword (laughs).”
Ribas, 30, ended up dropping her predominant occasion combat to Namajunas through unanimous choice. It’s not the best way she wished to start out her 2024 marketing campaign, however no less than her combat week stalker has since disappeared.
“To complete this week that I began single, I went ‘relationship,’ I acquired ‘engaged’ and ‘married,’ I ‘separated,’ too,” joked Ribas. “As a result of they researched and noticed that he had posted on his social networks that he’s touring to a different metropolis, that we have been separated, however that he wished me all of the luck on the planet (laughs). It was essentially the most surprising ‘relationship’ I’ve ever had.”
