Fatima Kline talks dominant win over Tabatha Ricci | Against The Cage

Welcome back to Against the Cage, Scott Fontana here again with Fatima Klein in the wake of her rankings rattling, unanimous decision victory over Tabitha Ricci during the UFC's recent visit to Oklahoma City. And Fatima, I don't want to beat a dead horse, because I know you've been asked about this, but we've got to talk about those suplexes, which were clearly the takeaway image from this fight. And look, I know you price a premium on getting finishes, but this has got to be a pretty cool consolation to have in your highlight reel, right? Yeah, most definitely. I feel like, you know, like you said, I'm a finisher. That's what I look for. But for this fight specifically, the idea of just kind of being able to put a staple on it and kind of just show my dominance throughout my fight was in a way almost better than finishing her because I could really kind of like show off my skill and show that, you know, I'm ready to be among some of the best in the world. Sure, sure. And look, you know, you punctuate that second one, especially with that head shaking tongue wag there. I don't know where that came. That was a side of you that I think your personality we have not seen since you arrived on the UFC. Where did that come from? You know, I think all the pressure that I put on myself and maybe the pressure from, you know, just with what we do and the UFC and it being, you know, I went from going to fight number 10 to number eight. And, you know, just a lot that came with that. I had a lot of pressure on myself to perform. And I think third round, knowing that, you know, I dominated the first two rounds, doesn't have anything else for me. Let me just have some fun. Let me just put it all out there and let me give Hunter and the crowd something, something to remember, you know. And, you know, you talk about obviously you had the opponent switch there. I got to say, though, and I'll be honest with you here, I did not like the original booking for you against Amanda Hibas because she was kind of coming off a rough stretch. Right. And you're obviously trying to build some momentum here. I mean, were you having any of that, too, when you kind of got maybe a step up, someone who'd been at least a little bit in the more the thick of the things? Yeah. You know, I always really had my eyes set on Tabitha. So when they gave me Amanda, I wasn't quite surprised, but I was like, oh, I would have liked to take a, you know, a bigger step because at that point, I think I was considered 11 and Amanda was 10. So I was like, OK, she'll move me up one spot. You know, I never complain about who I get and I never really care. I really just want to, like, show myself out to be one of the best. But I, you know, the stars definitely got brighter when it was Tabitha. And I knew I was ready for Amanda. So it'd be Amanda. And as soon as they switched, I knew I would be ready for Tabitha. Sure, sure. And look, obviously, you've got aspirations, lofty aspirations in this division, not just to be the champion. You want to be a star, right? How do you believe it kind of takes to become an actual star in today's UFC? Yeah, you know, I think it takes what I did and just putting it all out there and showing that I'm exciting. I'm either a finisher or I'm an entertaining fight. I don't think I've ever been in a boring fight. I never wanted to be. I never plan to be. And if I ever am, it's not because of me, it's because of them. I think that's just who I am. You know, I I really enjoy what I do. I love my career. I love where I'm at in my life. And I think when the UFC sees that, they see a star in the making. And, you know, I hope that's what they see in me. And I hope I prove that on July. Sure, sure. And look, you're you're obviously coming out of this victory here. You were on Al Helwani. You were talking a little bit about the the shoulder thing. And you were going to, you know, wait to see kind of what came out of that when it hit the weekend. You know, we're past that point now. How are you feeling and how might that kind of determine when you might be able to fight again? What's the latest with the shoulder? So latest, I just got an MRI. I do have like a micro tear in my shoulder, which I dealt with before. It's never really held me back too much. So hopefully I'll just get, you know, some stem cell injections and turn into like a half a robocop arm right here. But, you know, I'm really hoping to fight again, maybe December or January. When you when you saw me fight Taba, that was three months of discipline, of hard work. I was healthy. I dieted down the right way. And I want to be able to give that to myself, to the UFC and to the fans again. So I don't want to rush myself, but I'm sure not going to take my time with it either. Sure, sure. And look, Ritchie in this fight, look, she wasn't the largest of women, right? Like we know that she's she's obviously very fit, very athletic, but she's a lot shorter than you. You're a pretty large 115 or kind of in that mold of like, you know, you want a young Jay check. Rosen, I'm a unit. Some of those fighters I knew you looked up to when you were you were coming up, right? Five, five, you're five, six, I believe they were five, five, five, six as well. How much do you think kind of just having that natural size at this weight is a benefit to you in your career? Yeah, I think it really makes a huge difference. I really felt the weight difference. I felt like I was in a completely different weight class when I felt tapped. I think that obviously, you know, can be a great thing if you can make weight and go into the fight feeling great or it could be a bad thing if you don't know how to do it the right way. But, you know, I work with people that really, you know, my nutritionist is phenomenal at doing things the right way and making sure at the end of the day that I feel great. But having the natural advantage is just something that, you know, unfortunately, not everybody has, but you use what you have to your advantage. And I most definitely use my my size and my length. And I think that specifically is going to, you know, so far, it's been a really big problem for people when they do come to find me. So I plan on using it up until the end. I'm grateful God's given me this exact body for the exact reason why I'm using it for. There you go. There you go. And look, I know it was kind of a while for you to get back into the cage, right? Like July 18 was a long way from November. I can't remember exactly when it was, when MSG was, I think the 14th. So almost eight full months, right? Like that's a long time. How were you kind of hoping to get back in there sooner? Like, did anything fall apart in the interim? What was kind of the the cause of maybe this elongated break? You know, I think the cause was everybody ahead of me was getting booked. You know, Tatiana and Ruby Rose, well, Richie and Bruno was booked. So all these women that I kind of had my eyes set on were fighting and I wanted to be amongst the mix. But, you know, unfortunately, that's not what the UFC had planned for me. My my hope was that I was going to fight in like April. You know, and possibly get like two or three in this year when they brought me July. At this point, I think they just love booking my fights around my birthday because this is like the third year in a row that I fought just around my birthday. You know, it's it's really what the UFC wants. You know, I tell them when I'm ready and I give them a heads up, you know, like, hey, whenever you're ready to give me somebody, I'm ready to fight. And so I do really hope that when I when I reach out to him after I rehab and I make sure my body's right and I'm healthy with my shoulder, that when I go back that they'll they'll have a top five spot ready. Sure, sure. And obviously you named a bunch of women. I want to get to some of them in a little bit here. But I did want to ask you, too, because part of this longer gap between fights that you had, you did make some changes to your camp, to your coaching and that kind of thing. I know you were doing you trained a little bit in Thailand, a little bit in Vegas. You had a new coach added to your team. I don't know if you like if this was something that maybe when you were in the fight, did you notice in particular some of the changes and some of the benefits you got out of that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I knew right away as soon as I took her down with the first double, I hit that. I I felt that that almost like that backbone that I've been lacking, that I've been needing from my corner, you know, because we knew that tap, though we were expecting Tabitha to really stall me out and to put me against the cage and, you know, really make it like a dogfight for me. But my my team and I and my new cornerman Ozzie and my coach Augie and even Aaron, we came up with just an excellent game plan all together. And we worked as a team. We worked as a unit. And I think that's where you saw that's where you were able to really see me dominate because I had a strong suit. I had a strong backbone. All my fights previously, especially MSG, it was like it was not good. And I think you saw the results of that in my fight. And now that I have a I have great cornermen around me that are with me and are willing to work with me and do everything that we need to do, that that's what you saw on the top. It wasn't just me dominating her. It was all the work that my team put put into me. And that's why that fight went exactly the way it did. Yeah. What was interesting to you, you put a tweet out on social media like kind of during the camp and it was a little like sort of cryptic, but probably certain people would have understood it just just to put it out there. It was been told by multiple coaches. I made you. You're nothing without me. I built you. Are you willing to elaborate kind of on on what that meant and what was going on there? Yeah. You know, when when I've left my previous coach, I basically left with the intention of just, you know, I needed somebody that was willing to work with me. And just the inconsistency with my previous coach and the lack of respect, the lack of effort, the lack of commitment even was just something that I cannot stand for. I cannot allow. And I'm not at the level to be like, you know, basically like messing around and finding out, you know, and I just really felt, you know, kind of people doubt you all the time. And, you know, people always want to take the credit where credit is not due. But I'm one where I feel like if you put in the work that you deserve the credit, I think that's why, you know, this last fight, I keep telling people they're like, oh, you did such a great job, but it's my team, you know? Yeah, I'm the one that fought, but it's my team. And my last cornerman, it was it was the opposite. It was, well, what what about me? What I did this, I did that. It's, you know, we're in a selfish war and you got to find people that are still willing to be selfless in that. OK, OK, I can I can see what you're saying here as far as that goes. But also, I do want to now switch gears again to some of those names, some of those names that are ahead of you in the rankings. I want to play a little word association now with you. I'm just going to name a fighter and you're just going to give me one word or one phrase about them that comes to mind. All right, let's do it. All right. Let's start with Yan Xiaonan. Oh, heavy hitter. OK, Jillian Robertson. Submission specialist. Tatiana Suarez. Determined. Vierna Dandidova. Oh, oh, lay in frame. Zhang Weili. Champion. Mackenzie Dern, the current champion. Dog. Definite dog. Dog. All right. All right. Actually, yeah, yeah. I want to actually go back to Weili, though, because, you know, look, she's kind of been the name that in, you know, in the wake of your win, we've seen kind of the social media clips, the headlines have kind of broken out about how you mentioned how you would want to fight her. Like, that's the smoke you want, right? I imagine you've given at least some thought about how you would approach it. And I'm not expecting any sort of game planning, but like how much thought have you given to the way you'd approach that fight? You know, I feel like I would approach it very similar to the way I approach the tap the fight. I took my time. I did immense amount of scheduling and more of I put more mental thought about my fight with Tabitha that I think I've ever had against anybody else. You know, physically, you could be prepared, but did you mentally do everything you needed to do leading up to that fight? Did you, you know, break down your schedule? Did you, you know, have meetings with the people around you? Are we constantly on the same schedule? Are there thing adjustments, daily adjustments that we need to be making? And I felt like with my fight with Tabitha, I did all those things. And again, like even minor, minor adjustments, I feel like made the absolute biggest difference in my fight with Tabitha and that's exactly how I would approach Waleed. She's obviously super tough, you know. You know, she basically like just vacated the belt to go up to 25, you know, but she was a great champion at 15. And, you know, I think people see her as my toughest opponent. So why not face the one person that I think so? And I think everybody else also thinks that she would be my toughest. Why not just go, go right after the brunt of the force right off the bat? You know, I'm willing to fight everybody. Do I think they're going to give me Waleed? Probably not. But my mental state is always going against the toughest one. And whoever else it is, then I'm going to expect them to be the toughest one. And I'm going to expect them to be the best of the best on fight night. But I look at myself like that as well. And I'm ready to be the best I could possibly be on fight night. So I'm just really excited. No matter who it is, I'm ready to take the next step. And, you know, if it's not my next one, then I really do hope to fight at some point in my career. Right. And you're like kind of probably what you're alluding to. I imagine it makes a lot of sense for the UFC to just stick her in a title fight the moment she decides she wants to fight again. Right. Like that's probably where that would be going. But but the other part of that is like she's kind of been a mystery since her last fight at 125, which was the same night you beat Angela Hill at the Garden. So it's been a minute. Right. She's not really indicated like very publicly as far as what she'd like to do next. I know you saw her her recent photos. She's living her best life. She's got all the weight and all that stuff and having fun. It looks like she's just having the best time. Right. But do you think that she's even coming back to 115 or at all? Yeah, I have no idea. I you know, this is a part of MMA. Maybe the only part I hate is when, you know, people just don't give you any inkling, you know, because I feel like it's a matter of like a waiting game and I hate waiting. I would just even love even if she put out even if she lied and just put out a little thing like, oh, I'm coming back. You know, that would you know what I mean? I would completely be like utterly confident, like, all right, let's go. She's in my division right now. It's like, well, is she is she going to just stick to fly away? You know, I don't I don't really know. Nobody really knows. Like you said, she's she's kind of having fun. She's not she hasn't said anything. So that kind of makes it like, oh, I guess we'll wait and see. I'm hoping after the McKenzie and Jillian fight that, you know, maybe she'll put something out like, OK, I'm coming back. I'm ready to take my bell back. And yeah, at that point, that'll that'll be, you know, a lot of openings and a lot of clarity to the to the division. Of course, of course. And obviously that fight that's in Philly, that's just, you know, a couple of short weeks away. I know you were pretty much a lock to be there when your partner in crime, Aaron Blanchfield, is going to be on that. Yeah, I got moved off of that to later in the year. Are you still planning to attend? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'd love to see McKenzie and Jillian fight, you know, front row, front and center. You know, I think it's, you know, as someone who's been to live at the events and then, you know, I watch them on TV when I when I can't be present, that it's just a different feeling. You see things differently. You know, it makes it all the more real. It's like you could feel the emotion. You could feel their excitement. You could feel them fatiguing. And I'd love to have that feeling against people that, you know, are, you know, in front of me and people that I could be fighting within the next fight or two. Sure, sure. Look, you've already been asked a few times, I know, as far as how you think that fight's going to go. I don't know how much more you're going to offer on that sense. But my question is, how exciting do you think this fight is going to be and how much shine it could attract to this division? Yeah. Thank you for asking me that question, because I still have no idea who's going to win. I'm going to say it up until fight night. I still don't know. I am really expecting this fight to be super, super exciting. I think because they're both, you know, submission specialists that I feel like we're going to see a lot of their stand up. I'm really, really confident. You know, we might see Jillian bang more than she ever has. And and, you know, McKenzie McKenzie always kind of stands and bangs sometimes. But I don't think we quite see that from Jillian as much. And so I'm really excited to see, you know, two people that are high, high level on the ground, maybe stand up and strike and and, you know, show show where that, you know, what they got everywhere. But I I'm excited. I'm ready. I'm ready to walk in. Was this the right championship fight to book? Because Jillian is not necessarily one, two or three, right? She's a little further down. Yeah, I guess in my mind, it kind of made sense because I was like, Jillian has fought for a while and, you know, I'm not sure if it made sense for Verna after, you know, Verna lost to McKenzie and then, you know, for a second time loss. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. For a second time. I always forget they fought. Yeah. A couple of years ago. The first time ago. Yeah. I always forget that they fought twice. So I'm not sure if, you know, doing it a third time when it made sense. I thought that Jillian made sense. You know, why don't why don't you give a shot to somebody that's, you know, never gotten it before? And she obviously has proved herself enough to get it. And again, because they're both submission specialists, I think the UFC knew what they were doing with that. I do think it's going to it's going to pay off exciting. It's such a bizarre situation, though, that this fight is happening now in the way it is because it's the first women's championship fight of 2026. And it's going to be in the middle of August, which is kind of crazy. Obviously, they were look, the UFC had grand plans to get a fight in January. Right. We had Kayla Harrison and Amanda Nunez. That was supposed to happen. Kayla gets hurt. It just doesn't work out right. So that is what it is. Is it because it kind of what's your read on the fact that it's been very slow to kind of put together these championship fights? I mean, we haven't even had Valentina Shevchenko on the map yet. Yeah, it really does put a dent for, I think, not even division of vision, but for all the women in general, you know, I I don't see why women especially would slow down when when we're like the smaller portion of the UFC, you know. Not everybody watches women's MMA and not being consistent with fighting doesn't help that. And so that's why I really appreciate and I'm so glad people feel the way they feel when they watch me fight is I've gotten so many people tell me like, oh, you're the reason I'm watching women's MMA again. It's like I shouldn't be the only one, you know, like, come on, let's let's get the ball rolling. I'm glad Mackenzie and Jillian are doing something about it. But I'm really curious to see what happens to Valentina because I love watching her fight. But man, if you're not hurt and you're healthy and you're recovered, let's get back in there and let's keep things interesting for the women, you know. So so kind of in a sense, like, obviously, you are you're very much fighting as a selfish sport. You're trying to win. You're trying to get yourself to a certain place. But probably I almost detect to some degree you are rooting for women's MMA in general, like just just the girls around you just to be able to get some shine and bring some shine to everybody. Right. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like you really have so many talented women that are like Kayla Harrison and Amanda Nunez, Valentina Shevchenko, you know, Erin Blanchard, like you have so many talented women that, you know, for Valentina, I think she she's just maybe riding out the retirement age a little bit. You know, interesting. She is getting older and it's like she used to fight. I feel like twice a year, even as a champ. And I think that slowed down coming towards maybe the end of her career. But I love watching women's fights. You know, I find myself learning and growing through them. And yeah, you know, I just think, you know, put the gas pedal down and let's fight, you know. And, you know, I want to go back to Erin. You brought her up again, of course. You're your training partner, your said partner in crime. She is going to get a chance to maybe get a little one back for you, in a sense, as you know. You and I have talked about this fight before with Jasmine Dezavicious. That was a little painful for a brief period of time, I know. But now she has the chance to defeat her. I mean, how much does that maybe potentially take some of the sting out of what happened with you two? It would definitely take some of the sting out. You know, I'm definitely jealous that I can't do it. But, you know, maybe sometime down the road, I will get it back. But I couldn't be more happy that Erin can do it for me because she is a natural firefly way. And Jasmine has talked so badly about her and about me. So I'm ready to see Erin. Erin kind of shut her up and shut her out for the both of us. You know, I missed some of that. That kind of was a hole in maybe my research here. But what has she been saying about you two? So, uh, a lot of people don't know. But when I saw Jasmine, her corner man was calling me like really derogatory names, like cursing at me, calling me names. Not sure why. I didn't, you know, stir anything up during the week. I really think it comes down to Jasmine just surround herself with some of like the dirtiest people on the planet. And, you know, just on social media, you know, they're just making fun of the fact that the fight got moved. And, you know, if Jasmine could beat me, then she could beat Erin. But she don't know that Erin's a different animal in a different weight class, you know, and nobody's got grit like Erin does. Nobody wants to win more. And you could see it in the fight with me and Jasmine as I started building that she kind of started failing and, you know, take somebody my size and double it like Erin. If I'm able to slow you down, Erin is definitely going to be able to slow you down. So I'm ready for the beef to be squashed and to fly the American flag on on Canadian soil. Yeah, obviously, like you just alluded to right there, this fight was supposed to be in Philly and it just did the last two weeks that we heard it got moved to Canada. It was going to be basically in Erin's backyard. Now it's in her backyard. Do you know why that happened? Like what was going on there? Yeah, so Erin got a minor injury and just needed four weeks. Nothing serious, but just needed like two weeks. They were trying to get it scheduled for literally like the end of August. But UFC decided that, you know, all the fights were booked. So they had to push it all the way to Canada. And I think that's the perfect place for Erin to be. I think when Erin is ever the underdog or or she's in like an unfamiliar place or enemy territory, you've seen it when she got booed by Bali and Tracy and all these people that Erin shines brighter when when people people kind of, you know, don't pay attention to her as much or don't don't give her the love that she deserves. So if anything, I'm more excited because there's nothing like an American flag on another country's soil. So the eagles will fly in Edmonton for sure. And frankly, honestly, I was a little surprised that this was the fight that was booked for Erin. I personally had been pretty vocal that she made sense as the next flyweight title challenger for Shevchenko. And, you know, particularly in Philly, I thought it would have made a lot of sense right down the turnpike and all that. Were you expecting or were you guys expecting or hoping that that was going to be the next fight? Yeah, no, we were definitely hoping that it would be Sobo or it would be Valentina right off the bat. I don't know how many more times Erin has to prove herself to be a title contender, but, you know, me and Erin have the same mindset where it doesn't matter how many fights it takes. You know, me and her, we'll make ourselves undeniable. And I think that's what she's doing. I think this fight is an opportunity for Jasmine. I don't think it's an opportunity for Erin. I think, you know, same thing with Tracy. It was an opportunity for Tracy to show that she's top five and look at what happened with that fight. I think the fight's going to go the same exact way. And, you know, you saw what happened with Jasmine extremely quickly. I just don't think she has the takes. I don't think she has the skill. And I think Erin's going to be champion no matter how long it takes. And I expect Erin to be finishing Jasmine for sure. And of course, look, if everything does line up, you guys just keep on knocking down these women in front of you. The dynamic duo here could both be fighting for championships in different weight classes in 2027. How does that sound? Yeah, that's what we've always wanted. That's what, you know, us and my coach, All Gamble, always dreamed about is bringing, you know, two belts back home to our gym in Jersey. You know, I think it's something we've both been working for for so, so long, especially Erin. She's been in top five way longer than me. And I think 2027 might be our year. I think Jasmine and I can be anybody in front of me in a dominant fashion. I think you'll be seeing me and Erin as the champions of our weight class definitely next year.