Now more enthralled by jiu jitsu and looking back at her career, Modafferi wonders if spending so much time in the gym focusing on her weakness was the correct approach.
“Part of me wonders if I should have just been doing more jiu jitsu, and just become a monster on the ground instead of spending all my time on striking,” Modafferi said. “Now I’m trying to change it up and just enjoy jiu jitsu.”
Turning towards the future, Modafferi relishes the opportunity to display some of her true jiu jitsu skills in a grappling setting, without having to worry about some of the drawbacks of an MMA ruleset. Her upcoming match allows her to showcase aspects of her game that rarely saw the light of day inside the Octagon, but most certainly will on the mats at the UFC APEX.
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“I like playing closed guard and spider guard. But I couldn’t really do that in MMA because you’d get hit and then it would look bad, so I kind of changed to a top fighter,” Modafferi said. “I tend to find myself on the bottom a lot, so I’m trying to re-evolve to be good at that again.”