International Women's Day

On March 8th, the fight for equality for women in all areas and the Mexican UFC fighter, Alexa Grasso, considers herself privileged to practice a sport where barriers no longer exist.

"I never felt discriminated against, but before when the men came to the gym and it was their turn to take my class, they found it strange. I would tell them 'prove yourselves' and they would look at me like 'How can a woman teach us?', and well, now it's different because everyone wants my class," said the fighter in an interview with La Afición.

Grasso grew up in a family of combat sports practitioners and her uncle Francisco is her head coach, so she never had to deal with rejection when deciding to become a fighter. Now that she belongs to the UFC roster, she recognizes that the treatment nowadays is the same as for men, although it was not always like that.

"Our president (Dana White) is always watching over us, we have events with many women in the main and co-main fights. Now they give us the importance even though he once said we would never fight in the octagon, today his perspective has changed," she explained.

Just this Thursday, the company announced that the main event for UFC 224 will be the bantamweight title fight between Amanda Nunes and Raquel Pennington, and in fact two of the last five numbered events have been headlined by the featherweight monarch, Cristianne 'Cyborg' Justino.

Alexa's next challenge will be tough, facing a world-class fighter like Tatiana Suarez in Santiago, Chile on May 19. She assures that she took the fight because "I know perfectly well that it's not my strong suit, that wrestling is something I have to develop and I want to work on all aspects of my game. I have already worked a lot on my jiu-jitsu and striking, now I'm learning new things, I have teammates in my weight class who are in the Jalisco wrestling team and I am training with them."

Beating Tatiana not only means the possibility of moving up in the rankings, but also personal growth, "it would be a very important achievement for me, I have to counter her control and improve in all areas."

The first Mexican to achieve a victory inside the octagon is also preparing for the southpaw stance of the American fighter and is training alongside Karina Rodríguez, who is seeking her third victory in Invicta FC, but the trips will prevent her from accompanying Alexa on this occasion.

"You know that we retain a lot of fluid with those long flights, I won't be able to accompany Karina, but we have been helping each other and working very well together. For my fight, we will leave in the week of the fight but we will bring a massage bed to stabilize my lymph and regulate it before the weight cut," she added.

UFC Chile

May 19th

Movistar Arena

Alexa Grasso vs. Tatiana Suarez

Vicente Luque vs. Chad Laprise

Diego Rivas vs. Guido Cannetti

Veronica Macedo vs. Andrea Lee

Poliana Botelho vs. Syuri Kondo