Esquibel confident for match vs. Penne
Workouts with teammate Waterson have been helpful, she says
Today is a really bad time, says Jodie Esquibel, for Jessica Penne to be fighting on a UFC card in Phoenix.
Why?
Because Penne is fighting Esquibel, that’s why.
“I feel good about this matchup,” Albuquerque’s Esquibel said in a phone interview from Phoenix, where she’ll face Penne in a strawweight (115 pounds) on a card headlined by heavyweights Francis Ngannou and Cain Velasquez at Talking Stick Resort Arena. “I feel like it came to me at the right time and to her at a bad time.
“It’s a good time for me, and I feel good about what led me to this point in my career, and I’m really happy with where I’m at.”
Those might seem to be brave words, coming from a fighter who has yet to win a UFC fight. Esquibel (6-4 overall) is 0-2 in UFC competition, having lost to Karolina Kowalkiewicz and to Jessica Aguilar, both by unanimous decision.
Esquibel, though, said she feels no pressure from past fights — only the pressure to win that exists each time she steps in the cage.
“Any added pressure is unneeded pressure,” she said. “Of course we fight to win, so why wouldn’t I want to win? I think it’s unnecessary to put pressure on yourself like that.”
The real pressure might be on Penne (12-5). The Huntington Beach, Calif., fighter has lost three in a row and is fighting for the first time since serving an 18-month suspension after testing positive for a banned substance. The United States Anti-Doping Agency, in levying the relatively light punishment, concurred with Penne that the violation was not intentional.
Penne is no stranger, competitively speaking, to Esquibel. The two were contemporaries on the Invicta FC circuit and competed on the same Invicta card in September 2013.
That night, Penne lost to Michelle Waterson, Esquibel’s friend and Jackson-Wink MMA teammate, by fourth-round submission (arm bar). But Waterson barely survived a Penne arm-bar
attempt in the third, and Esquibel knows how dangerous Penne can be.
Having Waterson for a training partner, Esquibel said, is always an advantage, but particularly so for this fight. And Waterson’s next fight is against Kowalkiewicz, whom Esquibel has faced, on March 30.
“That’s what teammates do,” Esquibel said. “Michelle and I have been working together for a long time.
“It was great to have her in camp and start her camp and finish mine, so we did that together.”
Esquibel’s career path is similar to that of another JacksonWink teammate, Holly Holm. Like Holm, Esquibel originally took up kick-boxing with coach Mike Winkeljohn with no firm intention of actually fighting.
One day, Winkeljohn asked her if she wanted to take an amateur fight.
“After that night,” she said, “I knew I was hooked.”
Like Holm, Esquibel began her professional combat-sports career as a boxer. She’s 7-7-1 in her ring career.
A former firefighter who now works part time as a paramedic, Esquibel made her professional MMA debut on a Jackson’s MMA Series card in 2011. Now, at age 32, she said she feels as if her career is just beginning.
“I feel like, scientifically, women peak athletically later in their age than males do,” she said. “I feel like I’m the best I’ve ever been right now. I feel like I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been.
“I don’t really look that far into the future, but as long as I’m healthy and as long as I have the passion I have right now, then, absolutely I’ll fight until they tell me no.”
Esquibel’s fight is on the early prelim portion of today’s card, scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m. and available on ESPN+, the network’s subscription streaming service.