UFC Fight Night 99's Anna Elmose says 'no magic' in move to 115: 'Just don't eat so much'

BELFAST, Northern Ireland – At UFC Fight Night 99, Anna Elmose becomes just the fourth fighter in UFC history to make the drop from the women’s bantamweight division down to strawweight, joining Valerie Letourneau, Jessica Rakoczy and Jessica Andrade.

It’s a big leap between weight classes at 20 pounds, something that can only be compared to the gap between the men’s light heavyweight and middleweight. For some fighters, that would be too much to handle, but Elmose said it’s been less challenging than she originally imaged.

“It’s going to be my first time fighting in strawweight division, but it’s definitely my division,” Elmose told MMAjunkie. “I have no doubt whatsoever that my body, I’m a totally different athlete. I move differently, I have more speed, my power is still the same, so that’s a good thing. I feel better in this division. Actually I’m not going to cut more weight to this weight cut than I did last time. I lost a lot of kilos, most of them was fat. I was maybe a little chubby of a fighter last time. I’m not this time.”

Elmose (3-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) successfully made weight for her UFC Fight Night 99 showdown with Amanda Cooper (1-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC), which takes place at Saturday’s UFC Fight Pass-streamed event at SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She hit the 116-pound strawweight limit, as she expected, and said the key to doing so wasn’t entirely complex.

“Train more, eat less,” Elmose said. “If you ask the people around me, my team, they would say, ‘You made it look so easy.’ But of course it’s been hard. Most of it is the mental thing. Because when I think about it, ‘Are you hungry? Not really. But do you want to eat? Hell (expletive) yeah.’ But I’m not really hungry, it’s more my eyes. I want croissants and cheesecakes and everything. But I feel stronger and I feel fit in my body. It’s definitely a mental thing. The thing about weight loss is there’s no magic involved. It’s just don’t eat so much.”

Prior to joining the UFC roster earlier this year, Elmose had largely competed in the flyweight division. The UFC doesn’t employ that weight class, though, so she was forced to jump up to 135 pounds for a short-notice fight with Germaine de Randamie at UFC Fight Night 87 in May. She lost that fight by first-round TKO, and said she quickly realized it wasn’t the division best suited for her.

“The fight didn’t go my way, but I was taught a giant lesson and that was that I’m just too small for the bantamweight division,” Elmose said. “I already knew that before, but when you get a UFC offer, I was going down to flyweight, but the UFC asked me to fight Germaine and I was like, ‘Oh yeah.’ I would be stupid to say no. I got my chance and I realized in the middle of the fight she’s too big. I have no bad feelings about that fight.

“The fighter you’re going to see on Saturday is not the fighter you can see anywhere else. I’m a different body type, I’ve improved my skills a lot. I didn’t actually get to show in my last fight what I’m capable of then since then it was like a year before since I had fought. Not it’s like I have improved pretty much after the Germaine fight until now. I don’t think that the weight class has been an influence to my normal training to my skill set. I improved that a lot.”

Elmose’s introduction to the strawweight division will come against Cooper, a runner-up on “The Ultimate Fighter 23” who was submitted by Tatiana Suarez in the first round of her promotional debut at The Ultimate Fighter 23 Finale in July. Although Cooper appeared week over week on the reality series, Elmose admits she had to do some research when presented with the name of her first 115-pound opponent. And after some digging, “Panda” said she likes her chances in the matchup.

“I had to look her up,” Cooper said. “I’m like the worst MMA fan ever. I don’t actually watch MMA until I get a fight against somebody. Not even then I’m going to watch that match. I don’t want to be mentally locked. I don’t know what she’s going to do anyway, she could do totally different things than I expect. My coach is watching the YouTube videos and watching the fights and setting up the game plan. My job is just to improve and do the things that I do best. I didn’t know her but I’ve been following her on Instagram. She seems like a nice person.

“Of course there’s a difference between what you expect and what you aim after and what you dream of. Of course everyone dreams about the first-round KO. I’m not going to like go in there and expect it to happen. I’m not going to go in there and chase a knockout because that would be stupid. If I don’t get it I would be like, ‘Oh fuck, what am I going to do.’ I’m going to go and I’m going to expect a really hard back-and-forth fight and I’m going to win on points at the end of it. But I’m going to be there in her face for three rounds.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 99, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

And for more on UFC Fight Night 99, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.