Alexis Dufresne Wants Rematch With Marloes Coenen
UFC veteran Alexis Dufresne pulled one of the biggest upsets in women’s MMA history when she submitted former Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Champion Marloes Coenen at Bellator 155.
Coenen will be fighting for the Bellator MMA Women’s Featherweight Title and win or lose, Dufresne wants to fight her one more time.
“Of course the title fight would be cool to have – the belt, and it’s a lot of money,” Dufresne said to MMA Junkie. “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.”
The lone negative for Dufresne when she defeated Coenen was that she missed weight for the event. However, despite the fact that she came in 4 pounds heavy for the first meeting, Dufresne insists that the added weight didn’t play a factor in her win.
“I’ve always known what I was capable of; it’s the fact that I never got my opportunity to show it,” Dufresne said. “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.'”
Bellator 174 takes place on Friday, March 3 from the Winstar World Casino & Resort in Thackerville, Oklahoma with Marloes Coenen and Julie Budd headlining. Fightful will be providing live coverage of the event.
