Bethe Correia believes she’s a bigger draw than all other female UFC fighters combined

Earlier this month, in the main event of the UFC’s latest trip to Singapore, Bethe Correia stepped onto the canvas with former bantamweight champion Holly Holm. After two slow rounds of action, Correia was flattened by a third-round Holm head kick, and lost by knockout as a result.

This knockout was so severe that there was apparently some initial worry that her teeth had been knocked loose. With her dental health in check, however, Correia is now keen to get back in there and silence her haters.

“I left (the Octagon) and my mouth was bleeding a little, and I had the feeling of having my teeth loose,” Correia told Guilherme Cruz of MMAFighting.com. “They asked me to have my dentist evaluating it, but it’s all good. I won’t stay away from fighting for six months [laughs]. Haters will watch Bethe back in the Octagon and winning again. Sometimes a defeat makes me hungrier, more anxious to come back and silence the haters.”

Correia then weighed in on why she has such a significant amount of haters.

“I also believe UFC female fighters hate me the most [laughs]. They hate me, they want to fight me. They hate me because win, lose or draw, I promote more and draw more audience than all of them combined.”

Correia then discussed her third-round taunting of Holm, which occurred moments before Holm landed the fight-ending kick. Correia doesn’t consider these taunts the cause of the knockout.

“I don’t think it was because of the taunting,” she said. “I’ve done that before. I think I didn’t pay attention to the right distance to avoid her attacks. The kick happened after I stopped taunted, my hands were high. People think I lost because of (the taunting), but it wasn’t. I think that if I hadn’t stopped paying attention to the distance, maybe it wouldn’t have landed. I stopped in a distance that was unsafe for me and benefited her.”

Do you think Bethe Correia is currently the biggest draw in women’s MMA?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 6/27/2017.