Jasmine Jasudavicius won her fight at UFC Winnipeg in April and still went home $10,000 lighter. The Canadian flyweight told Full Send MMA this week that the Manitoba commission fined her for having something in her mouth during her unanimous decision win over Karine Silva. She maintains it was gum, and she says the money came straight out of her bank account.
“That last frickin’ card I got fined because everyone thought I had a dip in my mouth,” Jasudavicius said, per MMA Fighting. “I had gum. They charged me frickin’ $10,000.”
The part that seems to bother her most is the evidence. Jasudavicius said the gum fell out during the fight, and she told officials, “Hey, it fell out on the mat. Go get it.” According to her, the response was “Well, we wouldn’t do that.” She pushed back, telling them to go grab it and run whatever tests they wanted. “Peppermint gum, go check it and test, do whatever the hell you want with it,” she said.
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Essentially Sports reported that the commission never determined what the object actually was. Fans had spotted it on the broadcast and the internet quickly settled on a nicotine pouch, which is how the whole episode picked up the Zyn-Gate nickname. Silva’s team appealed the result to the commission, but without enough evidence the win stood.
This is the first time Jasudavicius has talked publicly about the fine, though she explained the gum itself back in April on Ariel Helwani’s show. She told Helwani she trains and warms up with gum, has fought with it before, and simply blanked on getting rid of it that night. “I forgot to spit it out before the walkout, and it was just still in my mouth,” she said. She also claimed she’s one of the few people at her practices who doesn’t use nicotine pouches, and closed with “You know what, it’s better than a toothpick,” a nod to former UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson and his famous habit.
The Silva win got the Ontario native back on track after a loss to Manon Fiorot, and it made her six wins in her past seven fights. Next up is the biggest assignment of her career: Erin Blanchfield in the co-main event of UFC Edmonton on Saturday, Oct. 17. Blanchfield sits No. 9 in MMA Fighting’s pound-for-pound rankings, and a win there could put Jasudavicius in line for a flyweight title shot in 2027.
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She has also made one fight-week change. “I’ve stopped chewing gum now,” she told Full Send.
My take: the rule is the rule. UFC fighters aren’t supposed to compete with anything in their mouths besides a mouthguard, and Jasudavicius has admitted the gum was there, so some penalty was coming. But $10,000 is a steep number for a substance the commission says it couldn’t identify, and declining to pick up the one piece of physical evidence lying on the canvas is a strange way to run an investigation. If you’re going to fine someone five figures, at least walk over and look at the mat. She’ll be gum-free in Edmonton on Saturday, which is good, because Blanchfield is a big enough problem without a regulatory sideshow attached.
