In the first fight of UFC 186, rising strawweight Randa Markos earned her first UFC win with a clear unanimous decision victory over Aisling Daly.
Markos, who competed on the The Ultimate Fighter with Daly, used her quick hand speed, wrestling, balance and strength to outpoint Daly in the first and third periods.
The growth in Markos’ game since her 2014 loss in RFA to Justine Kish or even the Ultimate Fighter is fairly remarkable.
“I’ve changed a lot since The Ultimate Fighter,” Markos said in a UFC 186 post-fight media scrum. “You can’t really go on what you experience in the house because like me, we’re going to change.”
Prior to the fight, Daly – potentially channeling her SGB Ireland teammate Conor McGregor – made some comments about how much better she was than Markos, and those comments served as significant motivation for the Canadian.
“It kind’ve bothered me. Her saying that it was going to be an easy fight her,” said Markos. “It really bothered me, but you just go in there, and you prove people wrong, that’s all I do.”
“All I try to do, is just prove to everyone I’ve been working really hard. You can’t underestimate me like that. You don’t know what I’ve been doing, you don’t know how hard I’ve been training, how much time I’ve been putting into this, and I’m just going to show you when I walk in the cage.”
As far as what’s next, Markos is ready to fight again, but she doesn’t have a particular opponent in mind.
“I’m not getting any younger. I want to do this as much as I can, and I want to climb to the top as fast as I can,” said Markos. “I just look at one fight at a time, and whoever they give me. I’m training really hard. I want to be able to beat anybody they put up against me, not just one certain person.”
“Being sixth in the division right now, I don’t know if this moves me up or anything, but I think it’s there for anybody to grab. I think Joanna [Jedrzejczyk] is a great athlete and a great title holder right now, and she kind’ve stepped up the bar a bit. I think any one of us can be the next for the belt.”