UFC strawweight Vanessa Demopoulos has expressed her disappointment in the backlash she has received following her recent controversial win.
‘Lil Monster’ defeated Kanako Murata via unanimous decision this past weekend at UFC Fight Night: Dawson vs Green.
Demopoulos entered the fight as a +300 underdog but pulled off the upset across 15 minutes, despite being taken down five times. This improves her UFC record to 4-2, with three wins coming in her last four fights.
In the aftermath, she was hit with backlash across social media regarding the scoring of the fight.
She said: “Yeah, that part sucks for me man! I earned a victory and now I have to deal with all of these people talking sh*t on my Instagram and I hate that. I love these people, and they’re literally coming and attacking me for what?! I’m not the judges but I know that I won that fight and I’m sorry that you lost money.
“I was such a big underdog in this fight! So many people bet on Kanako to win, so it’s like ‘Guys, I’m sorry that you lost money but I won the fight’. I know that I did more damage, I was very confident in all of that.”
Demopoulos Discusses Dealing With Negativity
There is often much discussion on social media when a contentious decision or scorecard is given.
Fans tend to criticise judges, however most don’t have large social media presences. Therefore, it’s not uncommon to see UFC fans resorting to handing out abuse to the victorious fighter.
Much of the abuse received by the 35-year-old came in her Instagram comments, with one user saying “You got destroyed, I don’t know how they gave you that win. Even you were surprised”.
The Greek-American discussed dealing with negativity in the exclusive interview with Combat Sports UK.
She said: “Yeah, it kinda does [get you down] a little bit, I’m trying to celebrate this victory with my family.
“I do respond to some of them but, honestly, at the end of the day people are going to say what they’re going to say, they’re going to think what they’re going to think and I can’t control that. Half the time they’re commenting from a dummy page, it’s not even them, they don’t even want to comment from their own pages!
“They’re not the ones that are in that arena fighting, they don’t feel what we feel, they’re not making these huge decisions. I won the fight, that’s it. That’s the end of it.”
Vanessa Demopoulos Full Exclusive Interview
Please provide transcription credit with a link to this article if you use any of these quotes.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
