Hannah Guy admitted it was “pretty sweet” to hand Valerie Loureda her first professional loss with a unanimous decision victory in their flyweight fight at Bellator 259 on Friday night.
One judge had it 30-27, while the other two scored the fight 29-28, and Guy gave her own celebratory dance after her hand was raised, recalling Loureda’s viral celebrations following her win over Tara Graff last August.The 26-year-old American Guy (3-1), who took the fight on short notice, had been a huge +435 underdog coming in at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, while Loureda had been a -600 betting favourite with bookmakers.
“I kind of liked being the underdog because I like shocking people – sometimes if you’re the favourite it can be a lot of pressure,” Guy said a post-fight virtual media scrum. “I feel Valerie probably felt that, I’m sure.
“Pressure is hard to deal with, as an underdog you don’t really have anything to lose. I kinda saw it that way. I had an amazing opportunity, all I could do is go out perform as well as I could.
“I gave Valerie her first loss, it’s pretty sweet, I can’t lie. She’s gonna come back strong – she has a great following on Instagram, I’m sure she’ll continue fighting and doing great.”
Loureda (3-1) dropped “The Hurricane” in the first and third rounds, but Guy was able to take the Cuban-American down at will and dominate her on the ground, seemingly coming close to submitting her in the second round with an arm bar.
“Arm bars are my strong suit or chokes, but I love grappling so that’s usually where I try to take the fight,” she added. “The arms were just there so I kept going for them.
“She really surprised me on the ground, we weren’t even sure what her jiu jitsu was like. I did watch a couple of her tapes which I normally never do.
“I didn’t know how her ground game would be, I assumed it wasn’t as good as her striking, but she did an amazing job with the arm bar attempts, I was really impressed by that.”
Given Loureda was ranked No 8 coming into the fight, Guy could well find herself in the division’s top 10 next week.
“I don’t know, we’ll see,” she said, laughing.
