ULTIMATE INSIDER UFC COLUMN: TikTok superstar Alice Ardelean is finding her feet inside the Octagon as she claims back-to-back victories after focusing on fighting
Alice Ardelean is well known for her racy online content, having got her big social media break by “squashing a pineapple”, but she insists she remains bananas for MMA first and foremost.
The Birmingham-based straw(berry)weight made it back-to-back wins in the Octagon in Las Vegas as she dominated the striking exchanges, utilising a peach of a jab, against Mexico’s Montserrat Conejo Ruiz to win by unanimous decision on the judges’ scorecards.
Despite her growing reputation in the UFC, Romania’s Ardelean still has a bigger profile on social media, building a following of 3.9m fans on TikTok, 692k on Instagram and a lucrative OnlyFans sideline.
But having entered MMA with no grape expectations, Ardelean, who is now 2-2 in the UFC after making her debut last year, is determined to squeeze everything she can from the experience.
She said: “I love fighting. It’s not even necessarily about the money. Well, it is about the money as well because, for example, I spent so much on this fight camp as I went to Orlando (to train at Fusion X-Cel).
“But I love fighting. I would fight for free – and I have fought so many times for free (in the past).
“You can definitely make so much money on social media right now. I guess it’s a blessing and a curse, but you can make money on it.
“Everybody thinks, ‘Oh, you’re cringe’. Then one video pops and you’re popular and not ‘cringe’ anymore.
“There are a lot of haters and you have to deal with a lot of stuff, but me personally, I don’t care. I’ve never cared. I’m just doing my thing… But I love MMA. I love fighting. I’ll do it until my brakes fall off.
“Before I joined the UFC, I knew people in it and I wasn’t anywhere near that (standard), but slowly I’m catching up, I’m getting there.”
Having successfully peared MMA and internet fame, Ardelean, who is hoping to make Florida her permanent home next year to focus on her fighting career, recalled how she got her big break online.
The 33-year-old added: “It was just something that popped up and I never thought that I was going to be anything on social media.
“It all started a few years ago when I squashed a pineapple between my legs. That video popped and a lot of people were like, ‘Oh, you look like that Shrek meme’.
“Since then I started to do it [a knowing surprise face] because people were tagging me in videos.
“When I started to post about being a fighter everybody was shocked – ‘Oh my god, but you’re the meme girl’. Now they call me a fighter.”
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