A lot has changed in a day for UFC bantamweight contender Norma
Dumont.
On Thursday, Dumont (12-2) spoke to
MMA Junkie, where she expressed her disappointment with the
seeming lack of championship bouts in her weight class. With the
expected title tilt between Julianna
Pena and Kayla
Harrison still only rumored for UFC 316, Dumont wanted to make
sure she was part of the championship equation. Her last win came
in a bloody battle against former title challenger Irene
Aldana, which she believes is enough to have earned her a crack
at gold.
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While Dumont initially called for an interim championship matchup
against Kayla
Harrison, she felt that Pena was the one holding up the fight
being official. After learning from Sherdog that the fight was
still being considered for UFC 316 in Newark, New Jersey, on June
7, the Brazilian changed her tune.
“I just saw [Pena vs. Harrison] was confirmed for June 7 in UFC
316, which is pretty good news once that fight will finally untie
the division,” Dumont remarked. “My request to UFC is to be reserve
in that fight, once there is a chance of one or both getting hurt,
The [No. 1 ranked Raquel]
Pennington is injured and will not be able to fight until the
end of the year and the [No. 3] Ketlen
[Vieira] has already a pre-scheduled fight. So, I want the UFC
to know that they can count on me and I’ll be ready, trained and on
weight on June 7.”
While Dumont is positive and upbeat about her potential to seek the
throne, not everything is going as smoothly in her life. Discussing
personal matters on a podcast with Ag.
Fight on Monday, Dumont revealed that she had changed camps
from Team Rules in Belo Horizonte to Chute Boxe Diego Lima in Sao
Paulo—about an eight-hour drive from city to city. According to
her, she found out two weeks before the Aldana fight last September
that ex-husband and business partner, Johny
Vieira, had stepped out on her with two different women and did
not hesitate to break up a 14-year marriage.
“The marriage was broken immediately, but we still had a team
together. Boys and girls from other places we had to take care of,”
explained Dumont.
The heartbroken Dumont was not planning on moving on to another
relationship, still picking up the pieces from her lost marriage. A
chance meeting with fellow UFC fighter Marco Tulio
at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas changed that
entirely.
“It was love at first sight inside the PI,” she joked.
They soon found themselves together, and after four months of
dating, Dumont traversed the distance between Belo Horizonte and
Sao Paulo to train at his camp of Chute Boxe. She was with him for
his UFC debut against Ihor
Potieria, and when Tulio prevailed in that matchup, coach Lima
offered her a spot on the team. She accepted immediately.
“The atmosphere in the team is really good, Diego is such a nice
guy and there are many lightweight boys from my weight division
here. The timing was perfect, once I knew that sooner or later, I
would have to start a new camp,” the Brazilian concluded.