Smilla Sundell has a UFC contract and no plans to sprint with it. The 21-year-old said after her Dana White’s Contender Series 96 win Tuesday that she intends to ease into the promotion, and that daily grappling work comes before any talk of rankings or a debut.
“I think I need to ease my way into the rankings. I don’t have as many fights as everyone else. But I know I can be there, and I am going to be there one day,” Sundell told MMA Junkie and other reporters at the post-fight news conference at Meta APEX in Las Vegas.
The contract nearly didn’t happen. Sundell (3-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) took a unanimous decision over Aline Pereira, sister of Alex Pereira, and Dana White liked the performance but wasn’t convinced she was ready yet. Mick Maynard, the UFC matchmaker who oversees the women’s divisions, overruled his boss and brought her in anyway. Sundell admitted that listening to White’s post-event analysis rattled her.
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“I was scared,” she said. “But I believe everything happens for a reason. I’m really happy that worked out.”
Three cage fights, 40-plus in the ring
Sundell’s resume is wildly lopsided. Three pro MMA bouts put her in the conversation for the least cage-tested fighter on the entire UFC roster. She also said she’s had more than 40 pro muay Thai fights, and she credited all those rounds for how she kept moving forward after absorbing shots from Pereira.
“That’s why I can get hit like I did today and still keep going,” she said.
She wasn’t thrilled with how the night looked. “I’m really happy to be in the UFC, but maybe my performance wasn’t what was the plan,” Sundell said, before leaning on her age as the cushion. “I’m 21 years old. I have time to learn, and I know I can do it in the UFC.”
The fix she’s chasing lives on the mat. Sundell said she drills the ground game every day, and some days she enters jiu-jitsu tournaments to close the gap on fighters who’ve been grappling far longer than she has. “I’m 21. I will get up there. I know it.”
Fight week came with a starstruck moment, too. Facing Pereira meant staring across at a corner loaded with star power, and Sundell said she grabbed a photo with Alex Pereira himself and spent some time talking with Glover Teixeira. Asked about a dream opponent, she skipped the names entirely: “One day, the one who is the champ.”
The UFC hasn’t announced her promotional debut.
This is the smartest thing a Contender Series signee can say out loud, and I’ll take it over the usual chest-thumping callouts every time. Forty-plus muay Thai fights means her hands will be dangerous from the first walkout, but UFC opponents will scout one thing on her tape, and it isn’t her teep. Signing up for weekend jiu-jitsu brackets is unglamorous homework that pays off in exactly the scrambles that sink young strikers. Maynard went out on a limb for her. The way he keeps that limb from snapping is a first booking that tests her grappling without feeding her to a wrestler who’ll lie on her for 15 minutes.
