Before her UFC debut, strawweight fighter Pearl Gonzalez was pulled from fight night for having breast implants.
It was a new issue inside the UFC ranks, one we have yet to experience, and the internet exploded once New York rendered their decision.
Luckily, the UFC remained steadfast in their approach with New York and got them to approve the bout and license it, despite their rule against breast implants.
The damage though, it was done. According to Pearl, the events leading up to her debut in the cage cost her a lot of focus, and potentially her win.
She told Ariel Helwani,
“I think that mentally it kind of pulled me away from the task at hand and the task at hand is always to win. And so, not that it at all is an excuse, it was a lot for me to take in and go through. Did they look into it enough before they jumped the [gun]? No, but at the end of the day there was nothing I could do about it. I don’t blame them. They did jump the gun, but we all do that in our lives, I believe.”
“I should not have ran out and was crying and emotional and telling him, ‘I can’t fight! I can’t fight, I have breast implants!. I kind of jumped the [gun] myself. I kind of overreacted in that moment in front of the public. It kind of transpired and went everywhere from there. They are safe. I did that research before I got the procedure done. Is it a silly rule? Absolutely. I can’t change other’s rules. Hopefully other states that have this rule will use me as an example to change that rule.”
“It was a lot to take in. I thought I did the best that I could to kind of put that to the side. But I realize today after the outcome of the fight that I could have done a lot more to stay focused and completely have that tunnel vision for that fight.”
