Las Vegas, NV — Long considered a top prospect on the regional circuit in her native Canada, Jamey-Lyn Horth finally arrived in the UFC on Saturday night.
At UFC Vegas 72, the flyweight moved up to bantamweight to capture a unanimous decision win over Hailey Cowan, maintaining her undefeated record in the process.
“I had the goal to be a UFC fighter, but to have that goal and to obtain that goal are two completely different feelings,” Horth (6-0) said following her debut. “You know you belong somewhere, and you think that it’s going to feel the same as it always does, but it doesn’t. It’s an amazing feeling, and I’m super-honoured to be here today.”
Horth has become used to long layoffs and struggles to get fights — prior to Saturday, she had last competed in 2021, claiming LFA gold — using the downtime to evolve her game and become a sponge for fighting knowledge. “Where I’d like to be fighting more often, it just wasn’t a thing that was available to me,” she noted. “There were just no opponents and nobody that was available to fight. But I don’t really think I’m going to have a problem anymore finding a fight.”
Hopefully not, given she’s now part of the world’s leading mixed martial arts promotion. Finding a date might be another story: debuting so close to the UFC’s Canadian return, UFC 289 on June 10, Horth would love a quick turnaround for the chance to fight at home.
“There’s a Vancouver card, and a couple weeks off and I’ll be ready to go for that,” Horth stated. “But I’d like to fight as often as possible and stay active.”
Opponent Cowan missed weight for UFC Vegas 72, but it was never something that gave the newcomer pause.
“To be honest, I don’t want to say I don’t care, but it’s just never been something that’s ever happened to me, so I’m not really sure how one person in that position feels,” Horth said when asked about that wrinkle. “It is very frustrating, I feel like it’s something we can control, but definitely there’s so many different elements to not being able to make weight as a female.”
“I get that, and we were never going to say no to this opportunity, so I didn’t really think twice about it. I wasn’t going to let it be an issue or a thought in my mind— I kind of just said ‘okay, whatever, we’re taking the fight, we’ll just move past it.'”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 72 post-fight press conference with Jamey-Lyn Horth above.
