Las Vegas — “The difference in this fight is, Alex had deep water experience and Bella didn’t.” That was Dana White’s take on Bella Mir losing to Alex Apodaca on Week 3 of Dana White’s Contender Series Season 10.
Speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press following the card at the Meta Apex, White also noted that Apodaca, who he later signed to the UFC, “never acted like a 6000 to 1 underdog.”
White, who actually encouraged Mir (the biggest favorite in Contender Series history) to attend college prior to persuing MMA, noted that “you guys all heard what her goals were over the next several years. And again, like I said out there, [Michael] Bisping nailed it and said the difference in this fight is deep waters. Bella’s never been there, and Alex has.”
Mir wound up losing a unanimous decision, with anyone who bet on Apodaca picking up serious money. “That fight right there would have paid for your whole year of gambling. Nobody in this sport is that big of an underdog, ever.”
White also touched on how difficult it is to go undefeated in MMA. Mir fell to 4-1 with the loss. Few big stars in the sport maintain perfect records. Georges St-Pierre lost twice, though he would avenge both. Jon Jones technically has a DQ loss against Matt Hammill, though the 12-6 elbows that cost him the fight are now legal in modern MMA. Khabib Nurmagomedov retired 29-0.
White used Jones as the example. “To come in and just go undefeated, it’s very hard to do in this sport. That’s why, when its done— he’s undefeated. And when you think about the killers that Jon Jones fought when he was a young guy in this sport. And there’s more than just his physical attributes. There’s the mental and the first fight with [Alexander] Gustafsson, when he got his deep water experience, how he reacted to that and overcame it, these are all things that are part of this game.”
Whether Bella Mir makes a quick turnaround, or takes time away to shore up her game, is something Dana White is leaving up to the fighter, and her father, UFC legend Frank Mir. “That’s up to her and her father. That’s up to them.”
Watch the full Dana White’s Contender Series Season 10, Week 3 post-fight press conference with Dana White above.
