Toronto, ON — Canadian flyweight Jasmine Jasudavicius finally got to fight at home as part of UFC 297, a special moment she called the “best night of her life” following a dominant win over Brazil’s Priscila Cachoeira.
Jasudavicius, who lives in the Niagara region and whose father is a retired Toronto firefighter, set a women’s bantamweight record for strike discrepancy in the bout, which had been scheduled for flyweight. The lopsided beatdown was stopped in the third round with Cachoeira bloodied, and Jasmine having captured a rare 10-7 round one on judge’s scorecard.
A 10-7 round, 281 strike discrepancy, and after two rounds the strikes were 228 to four. It doesn’t get much more one-sided than that, but Jasudavicus (10-3) wasn’t fully aware of how far ahead she was in the fight as it was all playing out.
“No, I wasn’t aware,” admitted Jasudavicius, speaking with Cageside Press at the UFC 297 post-fight press conference. Her coach had told her ahead of the bout not to admire her own handiwork until after the fight. “That really sat with me. Like ‘yeah man, that’s exactly what I need to do. Just go in there and fight, just do my best, do my work, and then afterwards I’ll be able to watch the fight and enjoy what I did.”
“The entire time that I was in there, I was just trying to beat her up. It pissed me off. That weight discrepancy, the thing she did with the weight pissed me off so much. So the first round I just wanted to torture her a little bit. Be a professional, come on, we agreed to this weight so long ago.”
That torture in the first round carried over to the second, which is actually where Jasudavicius picked up the rarely seen 10-7. Fights that one sided tend to be stopped, but Cachoeira held on until partway through the third, bloodied, battered, and once again put on her back and pummeled by the Canadian. The end came via an anaconda choke, Cacahoeira having no choice but to tap.
There was zero chance Jasmine Jasudavicius was going to pull out of a fight at home. Even had the locale been different, however, the flyweight standout would have accepted the change in weight.
“Yeah. I did the camp, a hundred percent. If I sign my name on the dotted line to fight, I’m fighting. I don’t care,” said Jasudavicius. “How big is she going to be? She normally fights at 125, I just think she sucks at cutting weight. Okay, 10 pounds, who cares? I train with girls that are 10 pounds heavier. I’ve been to all different gyms in the world and I’m always being matched up with the 35’ers instead of the 15’ers even though I’m a 25’er. So it’s like, I’m used to it. I don’t care. I’ll take the same fight anywhere.”
Despite the fight being renegotiated for a new weight class rather than an official miss, Jasudavicius is still getting a little boost to her pocketbook.
“Even though we are doing another weight class, I’m still getting 30%. I get 30% because this isn’t her first miss. The max that they allow in Ontario is 30%; honestly, I wish it was more, because it’s another weight class, it’s not like it’s three pounds, five pounds, it’s a whole new weight class. But whatever, I’ll take the 30% and I’ll buy something nice.”
Watch the full UFC 297 post-fight press conference with Jasmine Jasudavicius above.
