Aisling Daly found 'magic bean' to help propel her to UFC Fight Night 76 win

DUBLIN – On paper, Aisling Daly had her hands full at UFC Fight Night 76 against Ericka Almeida.

But, the Irish native did not disappoint in front of a wild hometown crowd in Dublin’s 3Arena. Daly (16-6 MMA, 2-1 UFC) earned a unanimous decision victory over Almeida (7-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) at the event, which aired on UFC Fight Pass.

Daly’s performance stood out for her relentless pace. She fought in Round 3 much as she had in Round 1. In Daly’s mind, her success can be attributed to a change in nutritionists.

“Somebody came into my life, a girl named Lindsey Doyle,” Daly said at the post-fight press conference. “I just happened to stumble across her in the last three weeks and she basically just changed the game for me. Pretty much changing up everything I was doing diet-wise for the fight.

“She’s had me running like a Ferrari. You saw me out there, I didn’t take a backward step. I was going hard for three rounds, smiling on the stage. She’s my magic bean. She’s my secret ingredient now. She’s going to get me on that run for the belt. It was always the issue, I was always one of the bigger girls at 115. That was the magic ingredient. Not to mention that I trained my arse off for this camp. Throw that in the bag as well. it was definitely the best shape I’ve ever been in.”

The victory was big for Daly on a number of levels. She was emotional to have picked up the win in front of a hometown crowd, but the win also helped her rebound from a unanimous decision loss to Randa Markos at UFC 186.

When she was done with the fight, Daly says that she wasn’t ready for it to be over.

“When the three rounds were up I was like, ‘Oh, is that it? No more rounds?'”

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 76, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

(MMAjunkie’s Mike Bohn contributed to this report on site in Dublin.)