Miami — French bantamweight Nora Cornolle picked up her third win in four UFC fights at UFC 314 on Saturday, kicking off the start of a new contract with the promotion.
That’s news even some of her teammates and coaches weren’t aware of, as Cornolle had wanted to surprise them.
“So, interesting question. I wanted to keep that a surprise for some of my coaches too, but no, that’s the first [fight] of my new contract,” Cornolle told Cageside Press backstage at the Kaseya Center. Cornolle notched her second finish in three UFC victories when she submitted Hailey Cowan in the opening fight of UFC 314.
Clearly Cornolle got off to a good start on this new deal, weight miss aside. And she did miss weight for the second time in the UFC, something she believes has been addressed. The miss itself, meanwhile, was something Cornolle blamed on her fight being moved forward. She’s originally been booked at UFC 315 on May 10, only to end up fighting one month earlier.
“I was originally scheduled for May 15, for UFC 315, and then they had to move me. To be honest, that was my first PPV, to be on a card like that. So they offered Miami, and they offered another fight later in April. But I was like, Miami is a better exposure. And it’s a better place as well, it’s a fantasy card we had here,” explained Cornolle. “Of course I had to make some change and I had some stuff that wasn’t under my control.”
“I did my best, I think everybody that followed me from the UFC staff can testify to that. Until the very last minute I did everything to lose that last 600 grams, but I needed a little more time that I didn’t have.” With that said, Cornolle believes her weight cutting issues will not recur moving forward. “We learned a lot with my coach about the process that actually works with me.”
The obvious move now would be to book Cornolle at UFC Paris, which is expected to take place in September again this year. The only issue is one of timing.
“Yeah I would love to. I guess this time it [UFC Paris] will be as before, early September. I think it was postponed to late September last year because of the Olympics,” Cornolle told Cageside Press. “It would be awesome to fight on the first week of September, but now I didn’t receive nothing, no injuries or nothing. So I would really like to fight late June or early July, that would be awesome, because I really need to keep that dynamic going.”
“I’m from Muay Thai and I used to fight a lot, I used to fight often and I really think that will help overall, all the weight and whatever. I think it will really help to have the dynamic flowing, and fighting more often.”
Watch Nora Cornolle’s full UFC 314 post-fight media appearance above.
