Vancouver — Earning her first career submission at UFC Vancouver, Stephanie Luciano put away fellow Brazilian Ravena Oliveira this past Saturday.
She also got a first in her UFC career — fighting with fans in attendance. After two straight fights at the virtually barren UFC Apex, Luciano got to experience a live crowd in Vancouver (a very live one at that).
“Fighting with the fans was something else. I like the vibe, I like feeling the crowd,” she told Cageside Press following the bout, backstage at the Rogers Arena. “So the more people, the better.”
Believe it or not, she had envisioned the finish ahead of the bout. “That went through my mind many times, that I would submit her with a rear-naked [choke],” stated Luciano (7-2-1).
Oliveira had been dropping down a couple of weight classes for the fight, but Luciano quickly discovered that concerns about her strength were unwarranted. “For like a second I was worried that she was going to be super-strong, but then I felt her hands, and I didn’t feel like she had much power in her punches.”
With a couple of wins under her belt, Stephanie Luciano is now looking to climb the strawweight ladder. “Maybe a ranked opponent next,” she suggested. There’s no one particular that she has in mind, she added. “I don’t have any names in mind, just somebody in the rankings.”
Despite UFC Rio coming just two weeks ago, and Luciano fighting another Brazilian in Oliveira, she wasn’t surprised to find herself fighting in Canada. After all, there were only so many spots on the UFC Rio card.
“I wasn’t surprised, because there’s so many Brazilians in the UFC. So there’s always a Brazilian on every card. But watching the Fight Night from Rio, Charles [Oliveira] winning, that whole energy, that gave me a lot of wanting to come out here and put on a show too.”
Watch the full UFC Vancouver post-fight press conference with Stephanie Luciano above.
