LAS VEGAS — Aieza Bertolso came to Dana White’s Contender Series looking for a UFC contract and left no doubt, submitting Camila Reynoso at DWCS Week 8 on Tuesday night to punch her ticket to the UFC. The finish, a submission she had been hitting throughout camp, sealed the contract and launched an immediate push toward championship ambitions.
“I’m very happy. Couldn’t be happier the way things happened. That finish couldn’t have come at a better time,” Bertolso told reporters including Cageside Press through a translator at her post-fight scrum. “That’s how we planned it. I’m very happy about it.” She said the submission was not improvised, but a drilled technique she had been catching teammates with in training.
“We’ve been training for that in camp a lot. I was just basically catching everyone in training, I was getting everybody, you notice that she got some defense in there. I figured if I adjusted a little bit, if I tightened it up, she wasn’t going to be able to defend it at the end,” she said. Bertolso stressed humility as central to her preparation: “I think staying humble is a key to success. You have to prepare yourself, that’s the most difficult opponent out there, you prepare yourself to win, but you prepare yourself to lose as well.”
“That’s how I think I prepare myself. I always think that opponent can beat me, and if you always think that the opponent in front of you, if you respect your opponent, if you always think that your opponent can beat you, you’ll prepare yourself the best,” she said. Confident in her all-around game, Bertolso added, “I know I’m a complete fighter. I do have a very good stand up game, I also have a very good ground game, and I can finish fights,” and made her timeline clear: “That’s what I want. I want to get as many fights as possible, quick as possible, and I do feel that soon I could be fighting for a belt. I want to have some wins, and go fight for that belt as soon as possible.”