UFC Vegas 56: Karine Silva Knew She Would Finish Botelho, Will Be Ready For Next Bout

Las Vegas, NV – It’s one thing to make your UFC debut on a fight night card and put on a good performance regardless of result. It’s quite another to make your debut and finish your opponent the way flyweight Karine Silva did at UFC Vegas 56 on Saturday.

Silva finished Poliana Botelho via first round submission at the UFC APEX.

“Very happy. Everything that (we) trained for happened in the fight so (I’m) really glad everything worked out,” Silva told reporters through a translator at her post-fight scrum.

Silva earned her way into the UFC after a submission victory on Dana White’s Contender Series in October following years on Brazilian MMA promotions.

“I’m out of words to describe how special it is to be here now,” Silva said.

The fight began with a very tentative Silva reading Botelho’s reactions to certain attacks and then planning her own offense. After dropping Botelho with strikes she shot in, took her down, and ultimately finished the bout with a d’arce choke.

“When I dropped her and I got on top of her I knew I was going to finish her. I was really well prepared by my team. The game plan was, if we were standing up, I was going to find the distance and try to knock her out. If the fight goes to the ground I knew I had a better ground game to finish her,” she said.

“Killer” Silva lived up to her name at UFC Vegas 56 and the origins of her nickname proved the name fight just right.

“It was my first MMA coach. I was coming up with some good wins. He named me ‘Killer’ and I stuck with it,” said Silva.

UFC debut finally achieved Silva wasn’t in a rush to call anyone out or say when she would like to return to the octagon next.

“I don’t have anyone in mind right now. I just want to go back to Brazil, sit down with my team and look at the mistakes and the things that we did well, then come up with something else, but I’ll be ready,” Silva said.

Watch the full UFC Vegas 56 post-fight media scrum with Karine Silva above. More coverage of the event can be found below.