After wating over half of a year for a booking, Carli Judice finally got the call. They sent her a date and a name – TUF winner Julianna Miller. However, it wasn’t long after the call came, that the name got switched up. The change in plans didn’t bother the UFC flyweight though – instead, she welcomed them with open arms.
“We hadn’t had Julianna Miller long on the book, so it’s not like we started game plan and it was like 14 weeks out,” Judice explained. “But when that, when the switch was over, I kind of got excited because everybody knows me, I like to scrap – I like to stand up and throw hands.”
Her new opponent, Yuneisy Duben is likely to bring exactly that kind of fight to her. An experienced striker, Duben is coming off of a violent KO of Shannon Clark on the Contender Series. Having seen that fight, Judice is excited for what the two of them might be able to do in the Octagon.
“I think Yuneisy is going to bring the fight that I want, so I think it’s gonna be fun,” she said. “I think it’s another potential fight of the night. If not, it’s going to be one of the more exciting fights on the card. So I’m excited about the switch up.”
But even though the experience advantage, in terms of tne number of contests, might lie with Duben, Judice doesn’t see it that way. She remembers herself in a similar position, and remembers the shock of a hard fought fight.
“I’m definitely trying to control the fight and make her fight at my pace because I feel like she hasn’t gone three rounds. I don’t think she’s made it out of the first round yet in her pro career,” “And before my Contender Series fight, I hadn’t either. Then when I got thrown in the Contender Series fight on 10 days notice, and that was the first time I went 15 minutes. I was shell shocked looking back, I’ve never been that tired. So I am excited to bring her into deep waters.”
You can see Judice head to those deep waters with Yuneisy Duben as part of the UFC Vegas 104 prelims. That card begins at 4pm EST on ESPN+.
You can also hear the entire audio of this interview on the latest edition of TTP. Her interview airs at 23:46
