Man, if I never have to see another cut like the one Irene Aldana suffered against Norma Dumont I’ll be the happiest camper.
UFC 306 in the Sphere transported fans through history for the Noche UFC Mexican Independence Day spectacle — along with transporting some fighters to the hospital. To say Mexico’s warrior spirit was on display would be an understatement. Look no further than the final prelim bout between Bantamweight contenders, Aldana and Dumont.
Aldana, 36, suffered an indescribably disgusting cut over her right eye late in the second round (click here to see it at your own risk) when she and Dumont clashed heads. Some additional punches didn’t help the laceration and between rounds, the gash was practically splitting the one-time title challenger’s face in two. For some ungodly reason, the fight continued and Aldana fought to the final bell, which only added to the damage as Dumont kept outstriking her opponent en route to a unanimous decision win.
Despite the loss, it once again garnered heaps of praise from the mixed martial arts (MMA) community for the well-known warrior, Aldana, including from the now-two-time Flyweight champion, Valentina Shevchenko.
“Oh my god, I definitely was during my warm-up I saw there was a cut but I every time tried not to be so much into what’s happen before my fight,” Shevchenko told MMA Today. “After, I saw on the internet an update how it was during the fight, after the fight, how many stitches they put on her face, and oh, yes. It’s something that’s definitely very, very scary.
“The only thing that I want to say about Irene is that she has some big heart,” she continued. “She has so much like desire and she never stopped. She was going there forward. She understood that it’s affecting the opinion of judges and everything, but she keep moving forward. She was like, ‘No, I want it. It’s mine.’ She was fighting until the end. I win or I die (laughs).”
The all-time great, Shevchenko (24-4-1), reclaimed her title against Aldana’s longtime teammate, Alexa Grasso, in their trilogy bout in UFC 306’s co-main event. Unlike the first two encounters, Shevchenko left no doubt with a wrestling-heavy approach to blow out Grasso on the scorecards for a unanimous decision win. They’re now 1-1-1 in their rivalry.
For “The Bullet,” she wishes Aldana nothing but the best after the damage taken and wants to reiterate that that’s just the sport they’re in. These things happen sometimes — no matter how disturbing they may be to look at.
“It’s MMA, we are fighters, we know that it can happen,” Shevchenko said. “We go inside the Octagon with it might being the outcome and we take this risk because this is our life. Definitely, it’s something you don’t want to happen, but sometimes it happen. It happen with Irene this time but she has so much heart. She’s one of the strongest fighters ever to continue to do that. So, I just wish her the speedy recover and to go back and do what she loves to do.”
Thankfully, Aldana has been in good spirits in the days since her wounds.