Cynthia Calvillo doesn’t plan to stick around much longer at 125 pounds.
The UFC veteran returns Saturday against Nina Nunes on the preliminary card of UFC on ESPN 41. But despite the flyweight return, Calvillo (9-4-1 MMA, 6-4-1 UFC) has her mind set on returning to her original home of 115 pounds.
“I think what’s going to happen is that we’re going to get through this fight first, and then we’re going to go back and re-run the tests and do a practice weight cut and just make sure that I’m going to be healthy enough to get back to 115,” Calvillo told reporters at the UFC on ESPN 41 media day on Wednesday. “But the plan is to get to 115 before the end of the year.”
Calvillo said she actually planned to drop back to strawweight sooner, but the way things played out kept her at 125 pounds. Calvillo said she was supposed to fight Brianna Van Buren in June, but after that fight fell through, Nunes (10-7 MMA, 4-4 UFC) was presented to her as an option she didn’t mind taking.
“We spent a couple of weeks looking for an opponent, and Nina’s name came up and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m good to fight Nina,'” Calvillo said. “And then they were like, ‘Nina wants to fight at 125, though.’ And I’m like, ‘You know what, this is an exception.’ I was planning to drop to 115, but with Nina previously being at 115, I was like, ‘I’ll do this. I’ll fight her at 125.'”
