UFC Fight Night 104's Jessica Andrade has aspirations of title glory, but won't forget where she came from

Champ Amanda Nunes might have been the first Brazilian woman signed by the UFC. But it was Jessica Andrade who became Brazil’s first female representative to actually set foot in the octagon.

Andrade, then 21, wasn’t even two years into her professional MMA career when she was scheduled to face inaugural women’s 135-pound title challenger Liz Carmouche. Andrade suffered a TKO loss in her debut, but went on to win her following three scraps before losses to Marion Renee and Raquel Pennington convinced the 5-foot-2 Brazilian it was time to try the strawweight division.

The move paid off. Now, after two impressive finishes, Andrade is set to face Angela Hill with rather realistic hopes that a win will get her a shot at the promotion’s 115-pound belt.

It’s not a bad spot for a woman who didn’t even know what MMA was not that long ago.

“I didn’t even know what MMA was or anything of that sort,” Andrade told MMAjunkie. “In 2011, they had a judo project in my school. I took one class, the teacher liked me, and he was like, ‘You have a knack for this, come train with us.’ And I said, ‘Let’s go.’ That was actually in 2010. In February of 2011, I started training jiu-jitsu. I liked it, started finding myself in it, and then in September I did my first MMA fight.

“And I fell in love with MMA. I won the fight, thankfully, and I said, ‘I’m going to keep going, because I have a knack for this.’ It worked. I didn’t train in MMA at first – I only trained jiu-jitsu. My first fight, I did only jiu-jitsu training. For my debut, I only did striking one week before the fight.”

After the successful TKO debut over Weidy Borges, things moved pretty fast. Andrade fought once more that year, but in 2012 alone, she took seven fights, going 5-2. In 2013, the year she made her international debut, she got the call from the UFC.

“It was all very quick and very different,” Andrade said. ” From one day to the next, I was already known worldwide. It was very funny, very peculiar, but thankfully I never let it get to me or go to my head. I was always very calm, very focused on what I have to do and thankfully today I’m reaping good fruits.”

Andrade, it turns out, has more in common with Nunes than the fact they’re both Brazilian octagon trailblazers. Like the UFC’s bantamweight champion, Andrade grew up hoping to excel at a sport that had very little to do with martial arts.

“My dream was to be a soccer player, like (women’s soccer star) Marta – the best in the world,” Andrade said. “But we know that women’s soccer is very under-appreciated. Women are not that appreciated in almost every sport.

“But in MMA, today we have our space. Thanks to Ronda (Rousey), thanks to Amanda Nunes, who’s representing us very well, and even Joanna (Jedrzejczyk), we’ve been claiming our space. But with soccer, I really wanted to be the best in the world. I told my mom, ‘Mom, I’ll be the best in the world and you’ll see.’ Since it wasn’t at soccer, it’s going to have to be in MMA.”

“I think my strength came from the farm”

While she admittedly wasn’t the most studious in class, Andrade says “everyone wanted to be on my team” in sports of any nature, leading her family to believe early on that she was destined to an athletic life.

Her physical prowess, however, didn’t limit itself to the school activities. Growing up in a rural area in Umuarama, Parana, Andrade also worked from an early age helping out her family at the small farm where her father cultivated products like corn, soy and beans.

After her MMA career kicked off, Andrade spent some time doing deliveries for a drugstore, later taking on a day job with her father as a truck driver. The training was kept to nights. She first moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she trains under Gilliard Parana at the PRVT team, shortly before her first international fight, in Russia. But it was not until after the UFC signed her that she left for good.

While now she only goes back to Umuarama to visit, Andrade credits her rural childhood for helping her develop tools that certainly come in handy now.

“I have a brother, but my father always asked me first when he needed help to carry things, because I was stronger than my brother and could handle more (weight),” Andrade said.

“When I wasn’t at school, I was at the farm. I think this strength of mine came from the farm. Spending my childhood carrying hampers to throw on the fork lifts, to mow corn, carrying weight around. I think the strength I have today is thanks to all this work from when I was a kid.”

Although her mom showed some initial reluctance with the face-punching aspect of her daughter’s current occupation – and still refuses to watch the fights live – Andrade says her family has always been behind her career.

And now, as her gig allows her some financial relief, Andrade is happy to reciprocate.

“Thankfully, I’ve always had a lot of support from my family,” Andrade said. “When I moved they helped me, but I also always tried to not relay problems to them. They have their own problems to solve. There’s no reason why I should dump my problems on them.

“So I called mostly to say nice things, my dad called to ask if I needed anything, and I said I didn’t, even if I did need it. Thankfully, today I help them, and everything’s good.”

“By the end of the year, this belt will be in Brazil”

Andrade’s good situation, of course, could certainly be made better by the addition of a shiny item now under Jedrzejczyk’s (13-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) possession. But first, she needs to get through Hill (6-2 MMA, 1-2 UFC), the Invicta FC champ who’s making her UFC return against Andrade (15-5 MMA, 6-3 UFC) at UFC Fight Night 104 in Houston on Feb. 4. The main card airs on FS1 following prelims on FS1 and UFC Fight Pass. The Andrade-Hill position on the card has not yet been finalized.

Andrade is aware she needs to beat a serious contender in Hill if she wants to take her desired next steps. But, in her habitually casual-confident tone, she sees a number of ways in which she can get the job done.

Jessica Andrade

“I think Angela’s game has a few gaps that I can work with,” Andrade said. “She comes from boxing – actually, kickboxing – so, she likes to move around and all, but she has some gaps that I can explore well and do a good game. She’s also very easy to take down, that’s also a gap that I can explore because I’m good at takedowns and I can use my jiu-jitsu.

“She’s a great athlete, she deserves respect. She has an Invicta belt. She’s not just anyone – she’s a tough opponent, and I think that’s great. The tougher the opponent, the better is the fight, and I always look to fight the best. If I put myself among one of the best, I need to fight the best. So I’m sure it will be a great fight.”

As for what’s next, Andrade, whose manager recently told MMAjunkie Radio she had already passed up on an opportunity to go straight for the belt, thinks the title seems like a probable scenario.

But, even if it doesn’t turn out to be the immediate case, she already has a deadline to make that one dream happen.

“Probably yes, if I win this fight I might fight for the belt,” Andrade said. “But I’m a grounded person. I think about the now. First, I need to win this fight, to only then aim for the belt. But dreams are dreams – you can’t not have them. I imagine it, and visualize it. And I think that’s the beginning of it all. Visualizing and seeking what you strive for, and then things happen.

“I know I can beat Angela. I will give it my best, I will go after the belt and, for sure, by the end of the year this belt will be in Brazil. It will be ours.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 104, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.