Like many fighters competing in mixed martial arts, Carla Esparza is paradoxical.
The tenacious veteran is hell on wheels when the cage door closes, but her Southern California roots yield a laid-back chill outside of business hours. Throughout her career, Cookie Monster has been able to turn on the ferocity when it’s time to do work but then keep those fires from overwhelming her by what she calls “girly-girl” activities with her friends and family.
The quest to be recognized as the top 115-pound female fighter in the world is what drives her, but it is the normal things in her life that keep her grounded. And while normalcy may seem to be a strange balancing tool, it would take Esparza a bit to realize the crucial role her process would play in what came to be the biggest opportunity of her career.
Along with 15 other women, Esparza was selected to compete on the 20th installment off the reality television staple The Ultimate Fighter. Whereas the introduction of the women’s strawweight division to the UFC fold would have grabbed a solid amount of spotlight on its a own, a history-making turn where the winner of the Season 20 tournament would become the inaugural women’s 115-pound champion amplified the upcoming season to megawatt status.
With The Ultimate Fighter 20 scheduled to premiere Sept. 10 on Fox Sports 1, the media obligations and appearances have been coming in a fast-and-furious fashion for the cast members. While that means Esparza’s schedule is currently at a unique level of hectic, she’s taking everything in and making sure she enjoys the experience.
“It has been supercrazy,” Esparza told Bleacher Report. “Everyone is hyped up about the show on social media, and we are doing a lot of media leading up to the premiere. I have really enjoyed it, and it just shows you how the show is being promoted and how excited everyone is for it. That makes me happy because it not only means the girls on the show are going to do well from an individual standpoint, but this is also going to make sure women’s MMA stays on the rise.
“I knew it was going to be crazy. I didn’t expect to live in a house with 15 other women and have it not be crazy. I was hyping myself before I went in there like there was going to be drama and all this craziness. There was drama, but it wasn’t so bad. I enjoyed the experience. I probably wouldn’t do it again, but I really enjoyed it.”
In fighting her way to an Invicta FC strawweight title back in January, Esparza proved to herself she was ready to battle for UFC gold, and maintaining her surfer-girl routine outside of the cage prepared the 26-year-old Torrance native for the situation she was about to enter for a six-week stretch. That balance would come in handy when entering The Ultimate Fighter house, where a fighter trains and interacts on a daily basis with the very people she could and probably will end up fighting.
That said, Esparza knew competing on TUF 20 had the potential to be a career-defining opportunity. She came to the sport as an accomplished collegiate wrestler just five years prior, and entering the TUF house meant she was going to have the opportunity to become the inaugural strawweight champion in UFC history.
That is a pretty drastic turn for any athlete, yet an achievement of that magnitude is precisely the type of lofty goal the SoCal representative gets fired up to chase.
“Everyone knew going in this was going to be a history-making experience,” Esparza said. “It’s hard to really think about those things when you are in the middle of it and living in it. That can make it difficult to see the magnitude of what is going on, but we all had the feeling this was going to be huge. Then once we got in the house and saw what was going on and the amazing fights that were happening, we knew it was going to make a big impact on this sport. It’s exciting, and it is like we are living history. That’s pretty cool.
“It has been a long road,” she added. “I came into this sport five years ago ,and there are girls who have been fighting even longer than I have. Even in the amount of time I’ve been in MMA, I’ve had to struggle and fight for no money. I’ve had to fight to get recognition, and with this show we are getting a lot of support from the promotion and the fans as well. It’s a great feeling to be at this point and be on a huge platform like the UFC.”
Duane Finley is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.
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