Alexis Dufresne Wants A Rematch With Marloes Coenen

In an interview with MMA Junkie, Alexis Dufrense said she wants another fight with Marloes Coenen. The two will both be a part of Bellator 174 on Friday, with Coenen fighting Julia Budd for the inaugural women’s featherweight championship and Dufrense fighting Gabrielle Holloway on the preliminary card. Here are highlights:

On their placement on the card: “I still get paid the same, so I’m OK. Of course the title fight would be cool to have – the belt, and it’s a lot of money. That would be pretty awesome. But I think if I got the choice between a title shot with an opponent and a non-title fight with Marloes, I’d just want to fight with Marloes. I’d want that rematch. Of course the end goal is get that title and be the champion. That’s everybody’s end goal, but I have a lot of pride and a little bit of an ego. I want my rematch.”

On her beating Coenen in their first fight: “I’ve always known what I was capable of; it’s the fact that I never got my opportunity to show it. As far as Marloes goes, as far as being an upset win, a fluke and all that – it’s not. It’s a fight. Sometimes that happens. Anything can happen in a fight, but it was the fact that she thought she was so good that there was no way I could touch her. She’s cocky. She couldn’t shake my hand before the fight. She couldn’t even shake it after. I’m a six-time world champion in jiu-jitsu, and she thought she was going to throw me around. Not so much. I took that fight four months after having my first baby, and they gave me the fight on 10 days’ notice because Julia got hurt. She said she took that fight as a favor to me – that she should fight for the title because she shouldn’t have had to take that fight when her opponent pulled out. What? That doesn’t even make sense. You were training for a five-round championship fight against a strong grappler. You couldn’t have had a better camp. My camp was taking care of a kid and then checking my weight 10 days before and being like, ‘Oh, crap. I’m 173 (pounds) and trying to make 145.’”

On her opponent at Bellator 174: “I don’t really look at my opponents too much. I don’t really look at a fight as expecting it to go a certain way. Anything can happen in a fight, so I’m not going to let myself expect or think certain things are going to happen. And no disrespect to my opponent, but I didn’t even know here name until two days ago. I was told many times, but I just kept forgetting. I’m not interested. I just want to fight. No offense, but I don’t think knowing her name or watching her fights or anything like that is going to make me fight any better.”