Herrig overcame burnout, anxiety to win at UFC on FOX 20
Felice Herrig needed less than two minutes to vent over a year's worth of frustration.
The main card opener of UFC on FOX 20 on Saturday saw Herrig submit Kailin Curran with a rear-naked choke in the first round. Not only did the win earn her a $50,000 performance bonus, it was also the first time she had her hand raised since Dec. 12, 2014.
Herrig lost the only fight she took last year against Paige VanZant and that performance haunted her.
At the UFC on FOX 20 post-fight presser, Herrig explained the numerous mental and physical hurdles she dealt with while she was on her break from the sport.
"People don't realize that my last fight was the first time I ever had felt like, after the first minute-and-a-half my body just went numb," Herrig said, according to Chuck Mindenhall of MMA Fighting. "I didn't know what was happening, and so I had a bunch of lab work done and medical tests done, and my body has been just so burnt out from all the years that I've been fighting. So I took a few steps back. That's why I took the time off.
"I was always training, but I was working on all the things that I maybe had been stubborn to do before, and I worked on getting my anxiety under control which was a huge factor. And this was the first fight where I felt relaxed and where I felt like I did everything in the fight I know I'm capable of, things I do in the gym."
It's understandable that Herrig would have some wear and tear on her. The 31-year-old already had 16 fights under her belt heading into Saturday's bout, more than the majority of the strawweights currently on the UFC roster. That's on top of the kickboxing career she had before becoming a mixed martial artist.
Luckily for her, number 17 was in her hometown of Chicago.
"I grew up in Chicago. This is where I've been my whole life," Herrig said. "Back when I started fighting when I was 18 I fought on all the local kickboxing shows. So it's nice that as my career has evolved I'm able to fight here again, because a lot of people have supported me for quite some time, my friends and my family.
"My parents have never been to one of my UFC fights. They've never ever been to a fight outside of Chicago. So I was just happy that people I'm closest with could be here to see it."