Michelle Nicolini is one of the most successful female grapplers in history. She won a world title in BJJ for a total of 8 times, before she won gold at ADCC 2013.
Recently, she challenged Xiong Jing Nan for the ONE Championship strawweight title in the main event of ONE: Empower. It was ONE Championship’s first-ever all-female card and, in the end, Nicolini lost via points.
Nicolini’s strategy has been to take the bout to the ground. However, Nan did an extremely good job defending against submission attempts. Ultimately, she scored a knockdown in the opening round and hurt Nicolini quite a bit in the fifth round, which was enough for the win via unanimous decision.
In her post fight interview, Nan expressed hopes for more improvement in the future:
I feel that I am not performing very good today but I think that my performance in the future will be even better.
Michelle Nicolini has made the transition to MMA all the way back in 2011. But it’s only been five years after that she turned her attention away from BJJ and towards MMA, gaining a full-time fighter status under the ONE banner.
Before the fight, in an interview for MMA Fighting, she stated the following:
I’ve been chasing this for a long time. I didn’t want to just fight MMA, I wanted to make a statement in this new sport I was coming in in 2016. To get here and fight for a belt alone is an incredible opportunity and I already see myself as the champion. I won’t stop after this fight regardless of the result, I still plan on fighting more, but it’s like I’ve accomplished all my goals in the fight circle.
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