Mariya Agapova wants to fight former teammate Maryna Moroz.
Mariya Agapova notched the biggest win of her MMA career over the weekend, with a third round submission of Sabina Mazo. That win, at UFC Vegas 39, earned the Kazakh fighter a Performance of the Night bonus.
In her post-fight press conference Agapova was eager to express who she wanted to fight next and explain the reasons why. In front of the gathered media she said she wanted to face-off with Maryna Moroz, who she trained with during her short stay at American Top Team.
Earlier this year Moroz claimed Agapova was booted from ATT for volatile and unpredictable behaviour that included drug use, threatening to stab team members and stalking a wife of a fighter.
Agapova denied these allegations. Her manager Alex Davis said that his client has gone “through some difficult moments” since relocating to the US, but is doing much better since attended therapy. Davis also denied that that Agapova had been using drugs.
“She’s just jealous, and second, she’s sneaky,” Agapova said when talking about Moroz and her accusations (ht MMA Junkie). “She tried to destroy my career. I lost sponsorships because of her interview and got in a big trouble situation, and I would like to punish this bitch because she tried to destroy my career. I want to smash her.”
“I left not because I was a drug addict and threatened someone with a knife. I left because I just argued with some guy and I left,” she added.
Agapova also made some claims against Moroz, saying she “cheated” Davis out of some money. “She fucked him up. She’s not a very good person and I would like to beat her ass and smash her face.”
A 22-year-old Agapova was given a shot on the Contender Series in 2019. However, she lost her fight on that show, dropping a unanimous decision to Tracy Cortez. She rebounded from that disappointment with two stellar performances with Invicta.
That got her re-signed to the UFC and in 2020 she got her first Octagon win with a submission over Hannah Cifers. She lost her second UFC bout to Shana Dobson by TKO, in the biggest betting upset in UFC history.