Canada’s Maria Djukic earned her first victory under the Invicta FC banner last time out, and returns to action on Friday night at Invicta FC 57 looking to notch her second win with the company.
It wasn’t easy getting to this point for Djukic (3-1), a bantamweight who would love to be fighting more frequently.
“Everybody’s journey is different, and some people get lucky getting three, four fights a year as long as they’re healthy and everything. I would love that, and that’s still something I’m striving for,” Djukic told The Top Turtle Podcast on Cageside Press recently. “But eventually, patience wins, and I got another opportunity with Invicta which I was stoked about, because it’s Invicta and it’s a badass promotion.”
Djukic admitted she was feeling the pressure in her fight with Fernanda Araujo, after losing (and being finished in) her promotional debut.
“When I got offered that fight, coming off a loss was obviously intimidating because no one’s here to lose, and the more that you progress into this career, the harder the challenges are.” At the time of her bounce back fight, Djukic was training in Texas, and felt fully supported preparing for the bout. “Once I stepped back into the cage and saw the lights, familiar faces and all that kind of stuff, it was just nothing but pure happiness and yeah, let’s rock on, let’s do this.”
Despite the ups and downs in the cage, it’s navigating the sport outside of it that has proven most difficult for the 30-year old from Edmonton.
“The biggest struggle is finding an opponent, man. I don’t know what it is, there’s a strategy to it, everyone has to make a smart decision, there’s so many factors that are involved as we know. Whether somebody’s injured, they’re too far off weight, they’re not ready kind of thing. So many stipulations.”
“At this point, there’s no reason to get mad about the situation, because no I’ve got my health figured out, Invicta’s got this new CBS Sports broadcasting deal, which is phenomenal, I’m really stoke about that too.” Djukic is also very happy with her management as well, and believes she’ll be able to stay active and get “fight after fight” moving forward.
On the downside, with her fight with Maria Jose Favela arriving on Friday, Djukic was not able to continue her training in Texas. “As much as I would like to be [back in Texas], it’s just not financially sustainable for me. If I’m getting back-to-back fights, I can make it work kind of thing. But not having a visa in the sense of working outside of being an athlete kind of makes it a bit difficult,” she noted. “So I have to come back to Canada to make some money in order to go back there and train and stuff like that. I’m kind of just financially recuperating that part, and back living with my parents in my home town, and training out of Kingdom MMA with some old friends with I’ve known for a while before I actually started this career.”
Watch the full interview with Invicta FC 57’s Maria Djukic above.
