Coming off a loss to Lina Lansberg overseas, Alaska’s Gina Mazany is back in her adopted home of Las Vegas for UFC 235 — and has added a twist to her training regimen.
Las Vegas, NV — Gina Mazany (5-2) will be welcoming her opponent, TUF 28 winner Macy Chiasson, to the bantamweight division at UFC 235 this weekend. It’s an interesting match-up on the preliminary card. Chiasson has never proven she can make 135lbs. She won her season of The Ultimate Fighter at featherweight, after all. That might just give ‘Danger’ Mazany the edge.
“To be fair, I think I can hold up a pace that a lot of people have a hard time keeping up with, much less somebody who’s cutting a lot of weight,” she told Cageside Press ahead of her bout with Macy. “It’s going to be interesting. I’m very fortunate that I’ve been walking around at the weight that I intend to step in the cage at for the past three or four weeks. And I think having that kind of consistency will definitely benefit me.”
Just visually, Mazany looks to have slimmed down a little. Part of that might be that she’s no longer hitting the weights as hard. “I’m still lifting, but I’m lifting to compliment my MMA game overall,” she explained.
“A lot of lifting stuff I do is just for fun, because I enjoy it. A lot of what made me look buff, I guess, is because I was carrying this extra weight,” she continued. “Luckily, all my weight falls to my ass and my legs.”
It’s not due to her pro wrestling exploits, something she’s dipped her toe in over the years. “I’ll dabble in it, in between fights and stuff, but I don’t try to stick in it too much, because I want to be safe,” she said. After all, an injury in her side gig could seriously hamper her fighting career. “But yeah I try to dabble in it every once in a while.”
Mazany is certainly living her best life at the moment. To that end, ‘Danger’ said that “I’ve really committed to putting all my eggs in one basket and making myself the best fighter I can be. I quit my bar job. Consistently surrounding myself by people who are competitors and want to be the best they can be. Whether it’s Xtreme Couture or the Performance Institute.”
On top of that, “just feeling good, honestly grounding myself with nature. I’ve added meditation into my camp, which sounds crazy and hippie but it’s helped my mentality quite a bit. So I’m looking forward to seeing a little bit of angry hippie come out this weekend.”
As to why she included this new, more mental approach, Mazany explained that meditation has helped “when I start getting nerves about the fight, or start getting nerves about anything really. Any sort of anxiety. A lot of times, I didn’t really know how to treat that.”
However, “one of my good friends, Lizzie, she introduced meditation to me. And I just tried it one day, and I was like ‘this is great, I feel amazing.'” It even helps her sleep, as like many fighters, a pending bout would keep her up at night full of what ifs. Not so much anymore.
Gina Mazany faces Macy Chiasson at UFC 235 this Saturday, March 2 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, NV.
