Tracy Cortez may be one of the UFC’s rising stars, but her journey to the octagon started in a way most wouldn’t expect. It turns out Cortez grew up with older brothers. Now, that is self-explanatory!
Growing up in a house full of boys, she didn’t have much of a choice when it came to scrapping. Her brothers would push her into fights with neighborhood boys, toughening her up in the process.
While the experience made her hate fighting outside the structure of the UFC, it also built the grit and resilience that now sets her apart in the octagon.
Appearing on the ‘George Janko Podcast’, Tracy claimed that the Cortez boys would levy heavy taxes if she lost the fights they pushed her into.
“ And they said if you lose, we’re going to beat your a*s too. So I would fight until I won, there is no losing. My parents were like what are you guys doing to her?”
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Having brothers will do that to someone. But it also meant, she learned to fight like a dog in a pit, a reflection of which can be seen in her bouts under the UFC banner.
Cortez’s childhood shaped her UFC career
The 6-1 fighter has won five of her six victories by unanimous decisions. While these statistics claim she has dominated fights, that has not been the case. She’s a scrapper through and through.
Whenever she has been backed against the wall, she’s literally stood her ground with a takedown defense of 62%. Each one of these wins has been a hard-fought one, right from the days of the Dana White Contender Series.
Right now, she is to undergo surgery for an unknown health issue, which is why she has pulled out of UFC Tampa. After media speculations about her proposed absence from the event, the flyweight fighter took to Twitter to set the record straight.
Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication with me fighting Dec 14th in Tampa, as I informed the UFC weeks ago that I wont be able to fight in December due to health issues that requires me to have surgery. I look forward to getting back in the cage early next year!
— Tracy Cortez’s ERA (@TracyCortezmma) November 6, 2024
Her last fight against Rose Namajunas (also Cortez’s first main event) might have ended in a loss, it was but her first taste of the difficulty levels in the sport. As she plans on returning to the Octagon early next year,one can only hope that she gets back to her winning ways.
