January 20 in Toronto will see Gillian Robertson fighting as close to her home town of Niagara Falls, Ontario as she’s likely to get in her UFC career — and when the news was delivered, it garnered an emotional response for the UFC women’s submission leader.
“I literally got tears in my eyes as soon as I found out it was in Toronto. I was so excited,” Robertson (12-8) told Cageside Press in an exclusive interview ahead of her UFC 297 fight with Polyana Viana. “The only time I’ve ever fought in Canada was Edmonton, so all the way across the country. And this time it’s a little bit closer to home.”
There’s one other twist to the Canadian date: despite her seven submission wins inside the octagon, Robertson is thinking this fight could end in a TKO. “Last time was the first time I ever got a TKO and the only time I ever got a TKO, so I’m counting Canada as my good omen and hoping we go for another one.”
UFC 297 marks the promotion’s second trip to Canada since the coronavirus pandemic waned. The first, UFC 289 in Vancouver last June, resulted in a clear sweep for Team Canada, who went 6-0 on the night. The question now becomes, can the Canadians in Toronto repeat that success?
“I think we have to. I think it is to do with the energy in there, the crowd in there. Honestly there is no moment in my career I can compare to my Sarah Frota fight [in Edmonton]. Winning there in front of a Canadian crowd was absolutely insane and I can only imagine how it’s going to be in Toronto.”
Gillian Robertson will enter UFC 297 off a loss to Tabatha Ricci in June, a bout that dropped her to 1-1 in 2023. An extended layoff, by Robertson’s standards at least, ensued. The lesson learned has a lot to do with that layoff.
“I can’t fight that soon at 115. At 125 that was very easy to make quick turnarounds, go right back into the fight. Just making the weight cut to 115, it takes so much out of me mentally and physically, that after my 12-week camp with Piera [Rodriguez], I was just so burnt out 100%,” Robertson explained. “Taking that Tabatha Ricci fight, I just knew it was going to be hard. Every single day, I was crying every day on the exercise bike doing my cardio. I was carrying four extra pounds all camp long just because my body was stressed, it wasn’t letting go of the weight.”
Robertson doesn’t believe that she’s physically capable of taking fights back-to-back if she continues to fight at strawweight, she added, “and that was really the biggest learning experience. Because Fight Night I wasn’t there, I wasn’t able to perform, I didn’t give the crowd what they came to see.”
“That loss, honestly it’s hard to say that I’ve been as depressed after any loss as I have after that one. Because I knew what was happening the whole time and I was trying so hard to make it not happen. I was working hard every day but I knew I was burnt out and I wasn’t listening to my body.”
A short-notice fight at 125 with the right opponent could be an option, added Robertson, who has always been a fan of staying active. But her goal is to be ranked as a strawweight. “I want to try to make a title run, so I would have to stay in the 115lb division to be able to do that.”
The depression and burnout following the loss to Ricci is not something “The Savage” had ever experienced before, Robertson later told us.
“Like this fight, no I haven’t. I’ve trained for 12 years now and I’ve never taken a full week off ever until this last fight. After the Tabatha fight I took one full week off, the next week I kind of just trained when I wanted to. So I wasn’t in the gym full time, I just trained one or two times I think.” It was Robertson’s longest stretch away from training. “I was just so burnt out. Honestly I just kind of wanted to be away from the sport, I didn’t want anything to do with it.”
The time off, and not having a fight booked, allowed her to get back into MMA and find her love for it again. “When you don’t have a fight in front of you, you’re able to just have fun with the sport instead of, it’s always work all the time. And that’s what it was, it was six months of work and six months of cutting weight and six months of just high-intensity that just left me 100% at zero.”
Short breaks, in fact, may become the norm for the Florida-based Canadian moving forward. “I think as a 15’er I’ll need to. It’s part about growing up in the sport and making more mature decisions around my fight career. I feel like if I am going to be cutting down to that weight I need to take the time, I’m not going to be fighting as often as that’s just the fact of it now.”
That does rule out a March fight in Miami, which will host UFC 299. “I’m going to be in the seats in Miami hopefully just watching the fights,” Robertson stated.
For now, however, kicking off the new year at home in Canada is next for Gillian Robertson, and she might have something of an inside track on opponent Viana.
“Polyana and I actually trained a little bit together at ATT a couple of years ago. So we have a little bit of a familiar feel. I know she’s a well-versed grappler, she’s got obviously that beautiful TKO against Jinh Yu Frey, so she’s got very precise hands, but I do think that she’s a little bit too comfortable on her back to be fighting someone like me. She’s too comfortable sitting there a lot of times, where it’s like I’m going to be able to work my game, I’m going to be able to work my ground n’ pound and either get the TKO or the sub.”
The push for a TKO is about more than just getting a highlight reel win at home, mind you. It’s about Robertson showing that she’s a well-rounded mixed martial artist.
“One hundred percent,” Robertson agreed. “I want to show people, I want to be a complete mixed martial artist. Ideally I would love to finish the fight on the feet one day, I don’t think I’ve really developed the correct mechanics to be able to do so at this point. But it’s like, I want that girl to be scared of me no matter where we are. If we’re on the feet, if I’m on top of you, if I’m under— if I’m in guard, it doesn’t matter, I want you to be scared. So that’s my ideal goal.”
Watch our full interview with UFC 297 strawweight Gillian Robertson above.
