The crowd at UFC 271 did not like seeing Roxanne Modafferi lose to Scottish-Australian upstart Casey O’Neill. During her post-fight interview with Daniel Cormier, the crowed heavily booed “King” O’Neill.
O’Neill, visibly enraged, delivered an profanity-laden rant. “Hey, stop booing me! I know it was her retirement fight but it takes two to tango.
Casey O’Neill vs Hostile Houston Crowd: “f*** you, I’ll be the f***ing bad guy!”
If you want me to be the bad guy, then f*** you, I’ll be the f***ing bad guy!” O’Neill then flipped the bird at the crowd with both hands before walking away.
In the lead-up to the fight, O’Neill had been cocky about her chances against the women’s MMA veteran. Roxanne Modafferi was a fan favorite for decades, a pioneer of women’s MMA, and many felt that Casey O’Neill had failed to show her opponent the appropriate respect. Indeed, during an interview with The MMA Hour, Casey promised to put the nail in Modafferi’s career coffin.
“I definitely don’t think it’s a good fight for her to go out on, so I’m grateful that she decided to take the fight. I’m not sure if it’s a passing of the torch, per se, because I do believe that people are looking at me to just smoke her, which I do believe that I’m going to do anyway.
I think the torch has already been passed. This is just going to be like a nail in the coffin type thing.” Casey O’Neill was hardly short on confidence leading up to the fight, focusing on earning a victory rather than a long trajectory.
“You’ve got to look at it as a marathon and not a sprint. I just think it comes down to being honest with yourself and where you are. People will blow smoke up your ass when you’re doing well, and people will tear you down when you are doing bad. I just feel like you can’t get too high and you can’t get too low.
You’ve got to stay within yourself and be honest with yourself, and assess how you’re doing as a person and try to not let the outside factors matter too much. I’ve tried really hard on staying level-headed and keeping good people around me who are honest with me as well.”
Casey O’Neill clearly expects big things from herself, but she has a long way to go before she can challenge for Valentina Shevchenko’s title. At 24, however, O’Neill has plenty of time to improve.
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