PhotoCred: MMA Junkie
Ariane Carnelossi overcame adversity to achieve chaotic first UFC victory
Ariane Carnelossi battled through more than just her opponent at UFC 261.
We’re now four weeks removed from the April 24 event where the 5-foot-2 Brazilian powerhouse achieved her first career UFC win. Yet she hasn’t left Jacksonville as she’s been immobilized more than your typical post-fight soreness will leave oneself in the aftermath.
Carnelossi and Liang Na went to war in a chaotic first round that kicked off the night of action at the first UFC event with a full crowd since the world shut down. Heading into the contest, Carnelossi had a lingering herniated disc that flared up to a brutal extent during the week. Thus resulting in her gameplan being somewhat shifted toward trying to keep things standing as much as possible.
Things didn’t quite work out that way as the fight saw ground warfare aplenty after taking a thumping right hand almost instantly. The Muay Thai specialist inevitably persevered through the intense pain to finish Liang in round two with ground and pound strikes.
“We weren’t able to maintain the gameplan and strategy but I was very happy with the result,” Carnelossi told MyMMANews. “I had never had a fight that had been on the ground that way so I was really happy to see how prepared I was in all forms of fighting.
“It was an enormous relief [just getting back in there]. It was almost two years without fighting so I was going crazy cause of that. I really needed to fight and I was eager to fight before but it wasn’t really possible so during fight week I resisted any difficulties because I was completely determined to be able to fight.”
The Presidente Prudente native hadn’t fought since her promotional debut against Angela Hill in September 2019 prior to UFC 261 – keeping her out of action for even longer was going to take some force. An injury as serious as anything to do with the back would just about do the trick for any average individual.
Soon after the victory, the now 13-2 “Sorriso” went to the hospital for surgery. She now has a set recovery of a full month without training, then the goal is for two or three more fights in 2021 after having missed enough time as is.
Carnelossi has been able to reflect back to her initial surgery for comfort as that led to plenty of resting with limited training methods that sought out ways to sharpen her tools. Doctors informed the 28-year old strawweight prospect that the herniated disc could be a result of excessive weight lifting and hard training. She was warned that it could come back again in the future – when it did it was much worse.
“In October of last year, I had already gone through my first surgery for my herniated disc,” Carnelossi said. “Since then when I was training I would feel back pain but not too much. On my flight to the states, it worsened a lot, I don’t know if it was because of the flight or because of the weather but during fight week I really wasn’t able to train. So that complicated things a little bit for me but I think my body knew I was going to go through a fight so it was prepared for fight day. I was able to see the physiotherapist to help me out a little bit but after the fight when the adrenaline disappeared, it worsened so much that I was screaming in pain. I ended up going to the hospital and then they told me that I needed to do surgery and I wouldn’t be able to go back to Brazil.
“I was really worried but at no point did I say I wasn’t going to be able to fight, I was pretty convinced that I would be able to fight on fight day and that’s what happened. But me and my coach came up with a strategy to keep the fight standing up, we didn’t want the fight to go to the ground so I wouldn’t be hurt in the middle of the fight. But that wasn’t really possible as there were moments where she took me to the clinch and I felt my back at that moment and got taken to the ground.”
The victory over Liang was a true test for Carnelossi to see just what kind of adversity she could overcome to prove her worth in the UFC. As if the stylistic clash wasn’t tough enough, her own body had to give her a challenge too.
It all began with Muay Thai for the Brazilian. She enjoyed soccer in her youth until hitting the teenage years where a gym was discovered near home. After so much time spent learning the art, Carnelossi’s trainer told her how much she stood out and urged her to enter into a tournament. Eventually, this led to taking up jiu-jitsu and blending everything together in MMA, and debuting at age 21 in 2014 – coincidentally enough against Amanda Ribas who also now calls the UFC their stomping grounds seven years later.
Carnelossi’s most recent fight in a way encapsulated her career up to this point. Keep your mind on the task at hand and it can overcome no matter what it is.
“You really need to focus on whatever you want,” Carnelossi said of her biggest learning lesson throughout her career.”Determination is something that’s essential. Friends used to tell me all the time that I used to sleep thinking of fighting and wake up thinking of fighting. I think that’s the biggest thing that I take away from fighting is how the determination takes you where you want to get.”
