Los Angeles, CA — Alejandra Lara returns to action at Bellator 290, with the former title challenger paired up against Russian standout Diana Avsaragova.
As has been known to happen in MMA, Lara’s opponent missed weight. Avsaragova tipped the scales at 128.8 pounds for the pair’s flyweight fight.
Lara (9-6) was actually up late the night before weigh-ins, jumping on a live stream by the hotel pool and even going for a dip. She gave her reaction to her opponent’s miss, speaking to Cageside Press following Friday’s weigh-in.
“She [told] me I’m sorry. I know that can happen. I think it’s maybe, a little bit a lack of experience on the weight cuts,” Lara suggested. “It was hard for me too, there’s never an easy cut. But yeah, you’re learning with time, and doing and doing it again. I think she just needs to do it more.”
“It’s okay. That can happen,” she added. In terms of the catchweight, “we were discussing that already,” Lara noted, asked whether Avsaragova’s camp had reached out beforehand.
Despite the miss, there’s no hard feels on Alejandra Lara’s part, and that seems to be the norm for the Colombian fighter.
“We don’t know each other, this is the first time we’ve seen each other. I don’t really have any problem with my opponents,” she told us. “Actually I was training with two of my ex-opponents for this training camp, and we have a good relationship.”
“We fight each other, but that’s business.”
Lara spent the end of her training camp at 10th Planet in San Diego, training alongside former opponent Ilima-Lei Macfarlane.
“That was amazing, actually, because since the first fight we had, we had that good energy, good vibes all the time. And then we see each other in San Diego, I was looking for a place, I was exploring. And she was like ‘hey if you’re coming, you can stay with me, we can help each other.’ And I was like ‘that sounds great,’ and it was an awesome training camp. Actually my ex-opponents were my biggest supporters.”
Marfarlane also helped Lara with her confidence, she added. “Ilima helped me a lot with that, like ‘hey, you already fought the badasses in our division, and you proved that the best grappler in our division, you took her back.” Macfarlane also told her not to doubt herself. “So I’m coming in a different position mentally, physically, and emotionally, in all the stages. I feel happy, I feel like I’ve discovered myself again.”
Alejandra Lara faces Diana Avsaragova on the preliminary card of Bellator 290 at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, CA on February 4, 2023.
