Jessica-Rose Clark reacts to Paige VanZant arm-break news: I wish I “snapped it properly”

Last weekend, in the co-main event of the UFC’s debut in St. Louis, MO, Australian flyweight Jessica-Rose Clark picked up a huge win over fan favorite former strawweight Paige VanZant. While it was Clark who came out on top in this fight, however, VanZant showed remarkable tenacity, battling to the final bell despite a broken arm sustained mid-fight.

Well… I broke my arm in the first! I was able to finish the fight but as you can see, had a hard time recovering and throwing my right. Thank you to the @ufc and to my opponent. Thank you to my coaches and most importantly my head coach’s @therealburkecamp and @fabianoscherner . I’ll be back better and stronger than ever! 💪🏼🦁 it’s all apart of the fight game. God had other plans for me. 🙏🏼 darn spinning back fist.

A post shared by Paige VanZant (@paigevanzantufc) on Jan 14, 2018 at 9:54pm PST

Even after telling her coach Fabiano Scherner about this injury between rounds, VanZant persevered.

“I let the fight play out because at any moment she… She wasn’t using her right hand, but I was looking at her face and she didn’t appear to be in pain or anything like that, so I thought it was serious but that she could continue,” Scherner told MMAFighting. “I didn’t think about throwing in the towel. We spoke about it after the fight and I saw the X-ray, I apologized to her for making that call, and she said, ‘It was the right call because I wanted to go back and continue fighting. I would be disappointed if you had stopped the fight.’

Now, VanZant’s opponent has reacted to news of this mid-fight injury. While she commended VanZant on her ability to hide this injury, she says learning about it just makes her wish she’d pulled off a finish.

Nah she did a good job of hiding it. I did notice her feinting with it more in last round but I didn’t realise why. Wish I’d switched to armbar from triangle and snapped it properly. https://t.co/9IkxWHZKSI

— Jessy Jess (@missjessyjess) January 17, 2018

What did you think of Jessica-Rose Clark’s win over Paige VanZant?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 1/18/2018.