Valerie Loureda recently signed with WWE, and now she’s got her eyes on a particular opponent.
Now that Loureda signed with World Wrestling Entertainment, she recently spoke with TMZ about who her dream opponent would be. The former Bellator star named another former MMA fighter, Ronda Rousey.
“She tweeted the other day ‘Who’s next?’ and before I even found out I was getting a contract with WWE, I tweeted back, ‘me,'” Loureda revealed. “That’s the goal I have one day. We’re both MMA fighters and it will be a great show. I can promise you that,” she declared.
Ronda Rousey entered the WWE in 2019 after years spent fighting in the MMA. Since then, Rousey racked up the RAW and Smackdown Women’s Championships respectively. Loureda further revealed that Rousey was the reason she became captivated by MMA.
“I never watched MMA before in my life, and just so happens, Ronda was fighting. And I saw a beautiful woman fighting in a cage, representing a traditional martial art, Judo, that she had done her whole life. I looked at my sister and and I got goosebumps.”
“I said, ‘Nana, if she’s doing that, I can do it too,’ and that’s really what gave me all that fire and passion inside of me to begin my martial arts journey,” Loureda shared.
Valerie Loureda follows the likes of Rousey and Shayna Baszler as former MMA athletes now competing in the squared circle. However, Loureda clarified that she wants to make herself stand out.
“I want to add my own edge to this, I’m different. I come from a Taekwando background, I could do a lot of very cool kicks and I’ve been training my whole life. So for me, I know it’s going to be tough. I know that I have to prove myself every single day, but I believe in myself and my work ethic that I’ve had my whole life. I’m going to make this happen, and do it big.”
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