Rebecca Ruth Plans to Make Her Bellator 157 Bout Exciting

Rebecca Ruth spoke with MMAjunkie about her fight with Ilima MacFarlane at Bellator 157. The highlights are below:

On initially getting into MMA: “When I came into the gym, I’d had my son, and I just wanted to get back in shape. I’d been into sports and been athletic, but after college, getting married, having kids – doing that kind of thing, you get out of shape a little bit. I went to the gym and started working out. I went to a couple of fights, and seeing the girls fighting, that competitive side of me took back over, and I’m like, ‘Man, I think I can do this. I want to give this a shot. I want to see if this is something that I can do.’ So I did an exhibition kickboxing fight and fell in love. And I’ve been doing it ever since.”

On the pressure of professional fighting: “Pressure is what you let it be. I try not to worry too much about the pressure. It’s more about the focus and getting ready for a big fight. It is a huge card. There’s enough footage to figure out that (MacFarlane) is going to be a well-rounded fighter. She’s going to be good in the ground, going to be good standup. I have to sharpen up my skills on my feet and then get in a lot of wrestling, a lot of jiu-jitsu. And that’s what we do. We formulated a gameplan, and as long as I stick with it, I see everything going really well.”

On her plan for the fight: “Definitely put on an exciting fight, give the crowd and all our fans what they came out to see. If it was ideal, my way, we would be done in the first round, and I wouldn’t have a mark on my face.”

On her plans beyond the fight: “My thing, though, is I’ve got to take it one step at a time. In order to have anything longterm, I’ve got to get through this fight. And after this fight, hopefully we can talk about a championship fight, a title fight, something to that effect. But right now, I’ve got to get past Friday night.”