Budd ready to climb back in MMA cage
Former champion on a high from Sechelt anti-racism rally, prepped to take on Miele
The people of the Sunshine Coast have put even more fight into Julia (The Jewel) Budd.
Budd, the former Bellator featherweight champion from Port Moody’s Gibson Mixed Martial Arts, climbs back into the cage to take on Jessy Miele in the co-main event of the Bellator 244 card on Aug. 21 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be no fans in the building as part of a set-up that Bellator has dubbed “FightSphere.”
Budd maintains she is heading in with an added inspirational spark from an anti-racism rally she organized in Sechelt in June.
Budd is originally from Roberts Creek, and still has family in the area. An estimated 2,000 people turned out that Sunday afternoon to hear speakers that included Budd and her husband, Lance Gibson.
Budd is white. Gibson, a former MMA fighter who is her trainer, is Black.
“It was really powerful. It was one of the best days of my life,” said Budd, 37. “It’s been fuelling my passion to get back in the cage. I fight for the people I love.
“We were going to be excited if 100 people showed up. We were going to be excited if 10 showed up. I was going to march if it was just me. There was a bit of a traffic jam and people were a little late, and then they kept coming and coming.
“Lance is a big, tough guy. When everyone started showing up, he started crying. We both were crying.”
According to the Coast Reporter newspaper, Budd spoke during the rally about how she remembers hearing racist slurs growing up in the community targeted mainly at Indigenous people, and about how “I don’t want to use the excuse anymore that our racism is a little better than the United States, that it’s somehow a measurement of how good we’re doing in our community or our country.”
Gibson talked about his parents, an interracial couple who married in 1961. He talked about how he worries about the safety of his son, Lance Gibson, Jr., a 25-yearold MMA fighter.
“It could be a security guard, it could be a lynch mob, it could be a police officer, it could be a customs agent. And you know how that story gets twisted? They pull him over, take him down a back road, we don’t see my son again. That’s what I worry about every time he leaves the house,” Gibson told the crowd that day.
The younger Gibson (3-0-0) is on the undercard for Budd’s fight, taking on Shane Kruchten (12-5-0). Budd will work alongside her husband in Gibson’s corner that night, like she has for his other fights. This will be the first time they have been on the same card together, though.
The bout against Miele (9-3-0), who is from Waterbury, Conn., marks the first for Budd (13-3-0) since losing the featherweight title to vaunted veteran Cris Cyborg in a fourth-round technical knockout on Jan. 25 during the main event of Bellator 238 at the Forum in Inglewood, Calf.
Cyborg, 35, is one of the most recognizable names ever in women’s MMA, someone who has mainstream sports appeal. A former Ultimate Fighting Championship champion, when she signed with Bellator in September 2019, the company tagged it as the biggest contract in women’s MMA history, although exact details weren’t released.
Budd won the belt on March 3, 2017, and defended it successfully three times. Prior to facing Cyborg, Budd hadn’t dropped a fight since Nov. 18, 2011, when she lost by submission to Ronda Rousey as part of a Strikeforce card. Her other career defeat came in Strikeforce on Jan. 7, 2011, when she was knocked out in the first round by Amanda Nunes.
Cyborg, Rousey and Nunes are all at very least in the conversation if you are coming up with a Mount Rushmore of women’s MMA.
Cyborg (22-2) hadn’t lost since her pro debut in 2005 before getting knocked out by Nunes in a UFC bout on Dec. 29, 2018.
Budd thinks she deserves another crack at fighting Cyborg and she is bound to be even more vocal about that if she puts together a strong showing against Miele.
“I want my title back,” the 5-foot-8, 145-pound Budd said. “I know I can beat her. I didn’t make huge mistakes, but I made a few mistakes in the details.
“I’m really focused on this next fight (against Miele). I think I can have the best performance of my career.”
The main event on Aug. 21 has Ryan Bader defending his light heavyweight title against Vadim Nemkov.
Bellator cancelled five straight cards from March through June due to the pandemic. They announced in July four straight cards with no fans at the Mohegan Sun, and Budd’s fight is part of the third such one.