Avila has dealt with nine different fight cancellations or opponent changes through her first three UFC appearances, with injuries, scrapped cards due to global pandemics, and positive COVID-19 tests among the various reasons her plans have been changed. This weekend’s bout with Stoliarenko will be the first time in her UFC career that she’s actually faced the opponent she was initially scheduled to fight, though this also the second time the two have been penciled in to punch each other in the face.
“Since the very beginning, it has been a rollercoaster, but I’m down to fight,” Avila says, resigned to her ways. “I love to fight; I don’t care who it’s against. I know that’s not the smartest way to approach things, but I want my fans to know that I’m here, I’m ready to fight, and I don’t care who it is.”
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That rollercoaster ride carried over to her life outside of the Octagon last year, as well, as in addition to losing her job as a result of pandemic downsizing shortly after her loss to Eubanks, Avila was also unceremoniously kicked out of her longtime gym, leaving her without a place to call home for a piece.
While she got plenty of offers from fellow fighters and did make a couple trips out to work with James Krause and the Glory MMA & Fitness crew in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, the perpetual mutlitasker instead opted to add “gym owner” to her curriculum vitae, opening the aptly named Outsiders Combat Club.
