Las Vegas, NV — Flyweight JJ Aldrich picked up her third straight win at UFC Vegas 50, capturing a unanimous decision against Gillian Robertson.
Robertson wasn’t who Aldrich had expected to see Saturday, but MMA is a fluid sport, and opponent changes happen as often as they don’t, it seems. When original opponent Ariane Lipski dropped out, Robertson stepped in just a few weeks out.
Following the fight, Aldrich (11-4) touched on adjusting following the opponent switch.
“We’ve just been trying to just get better with everything, so it wasn’t too hard, it wasn’t too much work. I wasn’t frazzled as bad as maybe I could have been, but my last opponent fell out last minute, and I didn’t want to be frazzled again,” Aldrich told media outlets including Cageside Press. “So this camp, I wanted to make sure I was going in there, all camp just being the best me I could be. So we were ready for it.”
As ready as she was, “it was a very big stylistic switch-up,” Aldrich added. “Ariane [Lipski] was a striker, and she’s [Gillian Robertson] obviously a really good jiu-jitsu girl. I was confident going in, but it was very different that what we were preparing for.”
Following the win, Aldrich’s immediate plan was simply to watch the rest of the fights, and in terms of what’s next, she’ll be ready to go whenever matchmaker Mitch Maynard calls. Whether it’s Lipski or not. “I don’t even really know her injury, so I don’t know how long it’s going to take her to heal up. I don’t really plan on waiting for her either. So if she’s ready to go, I’m ready to go, if not, whoever is next, I’m ready to break into the top 15. I know Erin Blanchfield’s up there, she just got a new 15 number next to her name, so I think that’d be a great fight for me.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 50 post-fight media scrum with JJ Aldrich above.
