Competing as a flyweight through two bouts for Combate Americas this year, ex-Bellator MMA strawweight champ Zoila Frausto would need a little more money to drop back down in weight.
The ‘Warrior Princess’ Zoila Frausto was back in action in 2019, after a couple of years out of mixed martial arts. Stops and starts, often due to injury, have been a bane for a fighter who early on was a force in women’s MMA.
Frausto (14-6), however, was the first Bellator MMA women’s champion, long before the likes of Ilima-Lei Macfarlane or Julia Budd were in the promotion. In the pre-Scott Coker era, Fraustro won the inaugural women’s strawweight tournament, defeating Jessica Penne, Jessica Aguilar, and Megumi Fujii to claim gold. She then fought in a handful of flyweight bouts before moving on from the company.
A stint in Invicta FC in 2013 didn’t go her way, and since then, Fraustro, who has also shared the cage with Miesha Tate, Jessica Eye, Rosi Sexton, and others, has fought just four times, including two fights for Combate Americas in 2019.
That’s a year, she told Cageside Press recently, that came with “a little bit of ups and downs.”
“I came in really strong, won a fight early in the year, February,” she said, adding that “I was supposed to fight a couple of times in the middle of the year. Those fights got pushed, I ended up fighting in Fresno again, that didn’t turn out so well, and here we are again, trying to fight again as soon as possible.”
Frausto has history, of course, at 115lbs, and Combate Americas is set to crown its first strawweight champion. However, ‘The Warrior Princess’ isn’t sold on a move down just yet.
“When it comes to being a strawweight, there’s a lot of things that have to be in place,” she said. “If I were ever to fight at that weight class again I would need a little more money than what I’m getting, because it’s way too much on my body and I need it to be completely taken care of when it comes to getting down to that weight class.”
“125 is still a pretty big cut for me as well,” she continued. “I’m comfortable fighting at 125. I fought at 135, I fought at 145 my first surgery back, but out of all the weight classes, I would say 125 is where I feel really good.”
While Combate’s women’s flyweight division isn’t as established as other promotions, signing with the company was an easy decision for Frausto.
“It was right up my alley. I’m Hispanic, I’m Mexican. I live here in America, but my family’s from Mexico. Just the market that they go after, and where it’s shown, I think it pulls in a pretty big crowd,” she explained. “So I’m more than happy to be here.”
“There wasn’t much shopping around, when I first came back from surgery, I really wanted to fight,” she added. “Combate, they were around. We figured let’s try out one fight, and see how I’m treated, and then if they do well I’ll sign with them. After that first fight I was hooked. I love the way they treated me, I loved the way everything went, so I signed.”
Sticking at flyweight at least for now, expect Zoila Frausto to get back in the cage soon, likely in December, although she wasn’t ready to reveal exactly when just yet.
