ANAHEIM, Calif. – Amanda Lemos has long carried herself with an all-business attitude and a title shot loss didn’t change that.
In the UFC 298 featured prelim Saturday at Honda Center, Lemos (14-3-1 MMA, 8-3 UFC) defeated Mackenzie Dern (13-5 MMA, 8-5 UFC) in a Fight of the Night bonus-earning unanimous decision.
“I’m feeling happy about tonight and I’m happy to be back in the win column,” Lemos told MMA Junkie and other reporters at a post-fight news conference. “… The way that we thought this was going to happen is what happened.
“The fight stayed standing as much as possible, trying to impose my game and avoid her and to avoid the possibility of her imposing her game, which is taking me down. (I tried) getting up as soon as possible and damage her. When I was taken down, there wasn’t much damage, so I was able to get up and continue kicking and just continue to do my game, which is what I did.”
The victory returned Lemos into the win column after a failed first promotional title bid vs. Zhang Weili in August. Lemos lost that fight by unanimous decision, but immediately went back to the drawing board with focuses on learning and improvement.
“I learned a lot from the loss,” Lemos said. “It was an opportunity to go back to work. We actually watched the fight many times. The idea is to go back into the gym and evolve and become as complete as possible, as much as possible, to make it harder on my opponents to get something on me. That’s what I’m doing. That’s what I’m accomplishing, and that’s what we’re getting done.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 298.
