Bella Mir opens up on historic Contender Series upset, backlash: Ive always had a
The UFC's Contender Series is in full swing for its 10th season, with Alex Apodaca scoring one of the biggest betting upsets in MMA history by defeating Bella Mir in last week's installment.
The bantamweight clash was the series' Week 4 headliner on Aug. 25, and saw Mir — the daughter of UFC heavyweight legend Frank Mir — enter as a colossal -6000 betting favorite. Apodaca entered with a +1500 moneyline as the underdog, then shockingly spoiled the party and stole a UFC contract from her 23-year-old counterpart via unanimous decision.
After her anticlimactic performance as such a huge favorite, Mir took a ton of online heat and criticism, not only from fans but from fighters alike. Ultimately, Apodaca (4-1) felt the response undervalued her efforts more than anything else, she said Tuesday on "The Ariel Helwani Show."
"She is a good fighter, and when you're saying that kind of thing, it's like, well, that means that I'm not. Or maybe I just did a good job," Apodaca told Uncrowned.
"If you're not giving her credit, you're not giving me credit."
Mir (4-1) also appeared on Tuesday's show, speaking after Apodaca. In reflecting on her first career loss, Mir insisted she's already moved on and has assessed what she needs to work on going forward.
She acknowledged that she felt the pressure of expectations ahead of the fight, but it wasn't necessarily an issue that resulted in her loss, Mir said.
"I felt confident. I felt good in my training," she explained. "Obviously, there was certain parts of my training that we had to adjust during fight camp. But I felt good. Obviously the weight cut [to 135 pounds], I'm still trying to get that down. I'm still trying to feel good on fight day after that. But no, I felt good.
"I didn't think anything went wrong before the fight, and it is what it is. I just didn't have a good night. … I think the pressure and all of that, it feels honestly the same for everything else I've ever done. I'm always going into [wrestling and jiu-jitsu] tournaments, and I'm like the most hated wrestler because of everything I do, and people doubt me, and I can't balance all three [sports] and everything that haters say.
"Since the day I can remember, I've always had a target on my back because of my last name," Mir continued. "So, I think now there's people who are starting to realize that pressure, and I guess trying to put it more on to me, but nothing honestly changed. I feel like I thrive in pressuring situations. So, no, it didn't really affect me."
Regarding the online backlash specifically, that didn't come as a surprise to Mir.
Having competed in numerous combat sports throughout her life, Mir has noticed the same reactions tend to arise no matter which contest she enters. She even called back to her experiences in collegiate wrestling, when she was clearly public enemy No. 1.
"I feel like it's pretty known that I'm not really liked in every sport I compete in," Mir said. "You hear the NCAA finals — there are more boos than there were cheering. I feel like that's just what it's been like my whole life. I feel like I've never been the one that's being cheered for. So honestly, the hate after the fight didn't surprise me at all."
Mir's loss became an even bigger magnet for heat shortly after her Contender Series defeat, but not for anything she did.
Taking to social media in the wake of the result, Mir's mother, Jennifer Mir, went on a tirade in the comment sections of several Instagram posts. The elder Mir claimed that Apodaca's win was a robbery and questioned how Apodaca could celebrate it.
Apodaca wasn't bothered by the comments and brushed them off as your typical internet noise. If it were coming from Bella, however, she admittedly would have felt differently. But even Bella admitted that she found it to be a bit surprising.
"My mom commenting on stuff obviously didn't really help the situation, but she honestly kind of took the fire off of me," Mir said. "Everyone started hating on her more than they were hating on me, so I thought that was crazy.
"It's like, 'Mom, you literally protect me in every situation I've ever lived in, and literally you protected me more in this one.' I don't even know how she could have done that, but she did.
"I think it was just the heat of the moment," Mir continued. "My mom's very emotional, so when she saw — obviously, she's seen hate in my comments before, but to a level like that, she's never seen. So I think it took the best of her, and then, obviously, drinking that night, that didn't really help. I don't think she really had any mission. She was just raging out. She obviously apologized to everyone and admitted that she made a mistake, and that's the best that anyone can do after making a mistake is owning up to it."
The betting element of the whole fight added to its magnitude, as Mir's win seemed to be a foregone conclusion pre-fight, which would've likely resulted in a UFC contract.
Going into the fight, Apodaca admitted she was entirely unaware of how wide the odds were. She didn't want to know, she said, and she instructed her team and those around her to keep it to themselves.
Once Apodaca finally heard how huge her upset was, she'd already pulled off the victory and begun her interview with UFC presenter Laura Sanko backstage.
"I told my coaches in the car, I remember being like, 'Have you seen the odds?' And I said, 'Don't say it right now. Talk about it separately.' Because I felt like I really don't need to know. The odds are not the fight, and I just wanted to keep focusing on the fight," Apodaca said.
"I didn't know the actual number, and honestly, I don't really know anything about betting, so it probably wouldn't have meant that much to me. … I feel like people thought I was fighting Frank Mir himself. I don't understand why in women's MMA they're putting that much betting on that kind of fight, right? It's women's MMA, you know? And it's Contender Series. We don't really know that much about the fighters going into Contender Series. So I thought it was just kind of insane.
"I don't really think it was fair either. If you went and looked at my fights, I was 3-1, she was 4-0. I think the biggest thing was the name, and also that she has mostly finishes and I have decisions."