Dana White: 'Everybody on earth' gunning for inexperienced new UFC champ Nicco Montano

LAS VEGAS – UFC President Dana White expects Nicco Montano to have a full slate of challengers ahead after claiming the inaugural UFC women’s flyweight title on Friday at The Ultimate Fighter 26 Finale.

Montano (4-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC), who earned a unanimous decision victory over Roxanne Modafferi (21-14 MMA, 0-2 UFC) to win the belt in the FS1-televised headliner at Park Theatre in Las Vegas following early prelims on UFC Fight Pass, has just six professional fights and a little more than two years of pro experience in the sport.

As a result of that, White said he expects all sorts of potential challengers to come out of the woodwork with the hope of dethroning Montano.

“It’s a difficult position for her to be in as the champion,” White told reporters in a media scrum, which MMAjunkie attended, following The Ultimate Fighter 26 Finale “Everyone’s gunning for her. She’s going to have to go work hard. The thing about her: She’s 4-2. I don’t remember if it was her or Sijara (Eubanks) that was picked last. She was the least favored to win the show. She’s the champ now.

“Everybody on earth is going to want to fight her,” he continued. “That’s part of being the champion. But being the promoter of it, I love it. I think it’s awesome. I think she’s a tough, gritty little girl, and I think everyone is going to be gunning for her.”

Considering the infancy of the women’s 125-pound division, White couldn’t name a potential first challenger to Montano’s belt. The 28-year-old beat Barb Honchak, Lauren Murphy and Montana De La Rosa to punch her ticket to the finals of “The Ultimate Fighter 26” tournament, where she beat Modafferi.

When the UFC announced it was adding a women’s flyweight weight class, White said he expected a plethora of athletes to either drop down from bantamweight or move up from strawweight. He said that hasn’t happened quite as quickly as anticipated, but now that there’s an inexperienced champion ruling the division, he believes things will change in short order.

“There hasn’t been as much movement from (135) and (115) as I thought there would be,” White said. “I bet there’s going to be a lot now, though. So we’ll see what happens.”

After being positioned at the No. 14 seed in the “TUF 26” tournament bracket, Montano showed her skills are far above what was originally assessed by the UFC brass. Because of that, White said he has a hard time determining Montano’s ceiling in the sport.

Given what she’s achieved already, though, White said he’s not ruling anything out as far as Montano’s chances of hanging on to the gold for an extended period.

“She obviously has something special,” White said. “She can dig deep when she wants to. She’s super awkward, she’s very strong that little girl. We’ll see what happens. Crazier things have happened. She could go from here on out and go on a run for the rest of her career and not lose. We’ll find out.”

For complete coverage of The Ultimate Fighter 26 Finale, check out the UFC Events section of the site.