Melissa Croden on UFC signing: “One of my most memorable moments”, “people will be surprised” at UFC Vancouver

Melissa Croden has established herself as one of the more exciting Canadian combatants in the world, and her debut with the UFC will see her positioned as the partisan favorite. At UFC Vancouver, ‘Scare’ Croden will clash with someone who recently had a five fight winning streak snapped in May. Despite being submitted by Luana Santos, Tainara Lisboa has secured some strong victories prior over the likes of Jessica Rose Clark and Ravena Oliveira.

When touching on Lisboa’s skill set and general resume heading into this UFC Vancouver fight with her, Croden said [via MMA Canada],

“She’s really, really well-rounded. I think this fight could go pretty much anywhere. So yeah, I know she; I’m pretty familiar with her striking style. Like I’ve dealt with people that have her striking style. And so it’s; I kind of like bullies. Like forward pressure fighters because I like to counter a lot. But I’ve been working on like a few different things to have in my back pocket to have the advantage in this.”

“And I think my wrestling and my grappling is; I haven’t had a chance to really use it. I haven’t had to. So I think it’s going to be like underrated. So [laughs], like; I like that people don’t know much about my grappling because yeah, I don’t think; I think people will be surprised by it when I get the chance to use it [laughs]. So yeah.”

Melissa Croden on “huge surreal feeling of relief” receiving her UFC contract

Melissa Croden is riding back to back LFA wins heading into this UFC debut but having spent nearly a year on the sidelines has had it’s challenges for the Alberta-based fighter, as Croden stated [via MMA Canada],

“I think like the last year or so has been really hard as far as like being patient and waiting. Trying to make smart decisions as far as my career as an athlete. So I don’t know. It’s required a lot of patience, a lot of internal motivation to keep showing up to training when nothing has been scheduled. My managers have been really helpful in that way to reassure me.”

“Tell me ok, we’re working on it, were pushing for you, the opportunity’s coming. I think I just had all the right people around me to guide me in making those decisions. But it has honestly been really hard to remain patient and not like take a bad match for the sake of taking a bad match and risking a loss. You kind of have to play a little bit of chess in this game to get to where you want to be.”

“So it’s been interesting navigating that side of things. Then when I found out, it was just like a huge surreal feeling of relief. One of my most memorable moments in my life, for sure. It was intense, it was really cool getting that kind of news.”