UFC strawweight Yan Xioanan recently picked up a landmark win over Mackenzie Dern at UFC Vegas 61, and credits her tougher-than-tough upbringing with motivating her to dig deep and earn a victory. Xiaonan recalled on The MMA Hour how, growing up, she used to beat up all the boys in her neighborhood. They might have been bigger. They might have been stronger. They all felt the wrath of Yan Xioanan.
“[I used to] fight a lot. All the boys who were older than me, bigger than me … they bullied me. When we [were] playing some games or doing sports, I always did better than anybody, so they disliked me, just bullied me.
Why Yan Xionan Beat Up All The Boys In Her Neighborhood
I never fought with girls. Just the boys. … I think I only lost one time. And then I went back home crying to my parents and they told me, ‘Don’t cry. Fight back. Next time, fight back. If you don’t fight back, you come home, I will [smack you].
My dad, he’s a fan of martial arts, and even when I was a kid, I was a very naughty girl but he just encouraged me to fight and let me learn the martial arts. So you can see, he brought me into this path of the martial arts.”
Xiaonan recalled how, even with 20 professional fights under her belt, her father still gets nervous. “He is very nervous, more nervous than me. Each time before my fights, I see him [going] into the bathroom several times.”
A huge part of Xiaonan’s success against Dern was the massive improvement in her wrestling ability. In her last fight before the Dern fight, Yan Xiaonan was dominated on the ground by Carla Esparza. Esparza made Xiaonan, primarily a striker, look like an amateur on the canvas. Afterward, Xiaonan uprooted her life to move to Sacramento and train with Team Alpha Male.
“Everybody treated me very well at Team Alpha Male. I feel it’s my home in the United States. And the second thing is, I learned a lot about how to mix up striking, wrestling, and grappling together in MMA from Team Alpha Male. So I learned a lot of knowledge from the team, from the culture. So that’s why I think it’s the right team for me.
I miss my family over there [in China], but my dad was here this time and that made me happy and it made me feel easier. But I still miss my mom and my three dogs at home.”
Do you think we’ll see continued improvement from Yan Xiaonan? Let us know in the comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m8j7ElqhEA
