Las Vegas — Strawweight Fatima Kline earned her first win under the UFC banner on Saturday, and the first finish in the promotion in 2025, at UFC Vegas 101.
Now, she’s got her sights set on a busy year that she hopes will have her climbing the divisional ladder.
“I expect to be able to fight two more times. I’d like to fight somewhere in the summer, and somewhere end of the year again,” Kline (7-1) told media outlets including Cageside Press following her second-round TKO finish of Victoria Dudakova. “With another two finishes in the strawweight division and hopefully a top 15 spot by the end of the year.”
After losing her first fight in the company on short notice (not to mention up a weight class), Kline is now back on track. Though things didn’t play out exactly as she had envisioned.
“The fight didn’t go exactly the way I thought. She grappled me a lot more, but I think she must have not seen enough film on me to know that when you take me down, I’m going to dominate you and I’m going to smash you. That’s exactly what happened. I’m super-excited that that’s exactly how the fight went, and I was able to find a finish.”
There’s a good reason Fatima Kline excels on the ground, a good reason why she doesn’t panic in difficult positions. That’s something she went on to elaborate on.
“I’m a shark, and when you take me down, you’re in my waters. It was funny that she grappled me that much. I didn’t expect it, but I put myself in bad situations all the time in training, get myself used to it, get myself confident in those positions so that I know I’ll work out of it,” she explained. “And I have my coaches there the whole time loud and clear, yelling out exactly what to do every second of each position that maybe wasn’t the best for me, but I knew I was going to find my way out of it. And with the guidance of my coaches, that’s exactly what happened.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 101 post-fight appearance by Fatima Kline above.
