Paige VanZant was one of the biggest promises in MMA. And we speak in the past tense because with only 26 years his career in the discipline is at a standstill. It took just four fights (three wins and one loss) for the UFC to knock on his door. His breakthrough in the biggest company in the sport was astonishing and he was 6-1 in three years as a professional. The plans for them were very good. He liked the public and was a publicity treasure, but since his fight against Rose Namajunas, in December 2015, everything changed.
Since then, VanZant won two of his next six fights. In July 2020, after falling to Amanda Ribas, the young woman decided to take another path. He put MMA on hold to make a radical change: he went to boxing without gloves. He signed with Bare Knuckle FC with a single goal: “I feel like in MMA I have the stigma that I’m just a pretty face, and this is the best way to prove to people that that’s not the way I see myself. In this sport it is in which the competitors have a higher rate of suffering cuts and having permanent scars. It’s something that doesn’t bother me at all“, he pointed out at the time of signing.
And is that Paige had many haters, which called her ‘the Kourtnikova of MMA. The comparison with the Russian was obvious and I wanted to break with it. This Friday, taking advantage of the pull of the Super Bowl, his new company organized a show in Lakeland, a city 35 miles from where this Sunday the new NFL champion, Tampa (Florida), will be known. Her debut was not as she expected. He gave his face, but again he lost again. He did it clearly on points (triple 49-46 in a two-minute five-round fight) against Britain Hart, who disputed his fourth lawsuit in the modality. Despite the defeat, it seems that VanZant is not demoralized. He uploaded a photo on Instagram of his face after the fight with the message: “Humble in victory. Humble in defeat“.
Paige VanZant is a major influencer in the United States
Without a doubt, it is a new setback for a fighter who, after a strong takeoff, has not yet overcome the new one. Despite this, in the United States she is a great influencer. He has almost three million followers on Instagram and has acknowledged that during his time in the UFC, he made more money with that social network. Even during the pandemic it was news. Together with her husband, also the MMA fighter, Austin Vanderford, she uploaded risque photos to that platform. Many of his followers asked him to become an ‘Only Fans’ (a social network in which they upload racy photographs and can only be seen by subscribers). She dismissed it, but Days before his debut at Bare Knuckle FC, he launched his own website, where he began publishing that content for a price of $ 19.99 per month.