Brooke Mayo Not Happy About Her Bellator 172 Fight Being Stopped

Brooke Mayo spoke with MMAjunkie about her loss at Bellator 172. Some highlights are below:

On her fight with Veta Arteaga being cut short due to a swollen left eye: “I’m still going to be upset about it…I’ve watched MMA for a while now, and I’ve watched other fights. And even in the (Bellator 172) prelims, I saw my friend, and his eye got completely cut open in the same area as my eye, and he ended up getting a bunch of stitches and all that, and they let him continue to fight. So I just feel as if – this is just my opinion and, not trying to bash anybody or to blame anybody, but I just feel as women we’re kind of treated differently…And would you have done that to a man? Like, would you have done that to (Matt) Mitrione (who fought through a broken orbital bone at UFC Fight Night 81)?”

On her overall experience: “Even though it wasn’t what I wanted, at least I got respect, and fans, people that want to see more. So overall (it was) completely positive, I think we proved a lot of people wrong, on both sides.”

On people who doubted her leading up to the fight: “That really motivated me a lot, just as a female athlete. I just felt like there was a lot of like, ‘Oh, she doesn’t deserve it,’ I heard a lot of that stuff. That got me really fired up, and I think that was like, ‘No, we deserve this.’ It wasn’t just even talking specifically about me. They just said these two girls, Veta only having three pro fights and me not having any pro fights. I was just like, ‘You know what? We both freaking deserve it.’ At the end of the day, we had twice the amount of heart that half of those guys had on our pinky fingers. I’m not trying to bash anybody, but that’s how I felt about it. We fought with such courage and heart. And I think that’s what the fans want to see. They don’t want to see people shy away from the contact or shy away from getting in there and going head to head with somebody.”

On people who advised her not to take the fight against a more experienced opponent: “A lot of people were like, ‘Why are you taking this fight right now? She’s had a couple pro fights. You haven’t had any.’ A lot of people advised me to not take that matchup because, ‘That’s a tough fight. You can take that one later.’ I was worried I wasn’t going to get a fight at all. Because there’s a lot of debuters. Apparently I don’t know if this is true or not, but I was having trouble getting matched with another debuter. So I was like, ‘No, let’s do it, let’s make it happen, and let’s make it exciting.’”

On the difference between how male and female fighters are treated: “You know what was really telling about the differences? It’s the fact that I was reading some of the comments. You can help but read. A lot of people were like, ‘Oh, she’s attractive, so any attractive fighter is going to get hosed.’ Or, ‘Any attractive fighter that’s being pushed into MMA or whatever, that person is weak.’ They were almost relating my appearance to what’s on the inside. And it’s just like, you don’t have any clue about what I’ve been through or who I am. Veta is a pretty girl, too. Just because we’re pretty or attractive or we get ourselves ready for press stuff, that doesn’t mean that you should treat us any differently. And it’s funny because it ended up the opposite was true. We ended up having 20 times the heart and determination that some of those dudes had. And that’s what was frustrating, hearing those things. We’re still this far behind that we’re going to say she’s feminine, she’s cute, because she’s weak? That’s crazy to me.”

On her willingness to take hits: “It’s one of my biggest strengths and also one of my biggest weaknesses, as a fighter and as a person. Because when I first came into the gym, that was a thing there, like, it’s cool that you want to stand toe-to-toe with 200-pound dudes, but you need to actually care about getting hit. I think in the heat of the battle, your fighter instincts kick in. For the first couple of rounds, I was trying to stay a little to be more aware and trying to move and be more evasive, but then the instincts kicked in. My default set in, and I was like, ‘Push forward and dig through it, come at me.’”

On working as a flight attendant while fighting: “It’s tough sometimes to balance it. Because at the end of the day, I have to pay the bills and all that. Especially in amateur, there would be days where I would fight on Saturday and I’d still fly a 14-day on Sunday. It’s definitely tough. Sometimes my rest day is a 14-hour workday. It’s definitely hard to balance it. But you figure out how to make it work. And I know there’s a lot of other fighters who have jobs like that too, where they work a 10-hour workday.”

On her future with Bellator: “I hope they want to put me back in there. I don’t know what Bellator is thinking in regard to me right now. Hopefully I scored some bonus points, being brave enough to take that fight and also being brave enough to just be on the main card and fighting in front of that many people. I hope they’re going to use me. I hope they have plans for me to fight again soon, because I’m not hurt or injured. I’m ready to go back in there as soon as possible. I think that I’ll be able to correct those mistakes that were made, and there’s also partially just performing in a different environment, understanding how to manage your emotions and how you deal with the whole crowd and all of that stuff. I think next time around, I’ll naturally be a little more comfortable. But I think I’m ready to get back in there as soon as possible and hopefully do it again as soon as I can.”