Amanda Lemos: An Improbable Contender

Amanda Lemos was content to leave mixed martial arts behind. Then the Ultimate Fighting Championship called, offered her a job and prompted an immediate 180-degree turn.

“I wasn’t training anymore,” Lemos told Sherdog.com. “I was working a regular job. I had already given up on this career in MMA when [my manager] Wallid Ismail let me know the UFC needed a bantamweight to fight in 20 days. I accepted right away. Of course, I expected that I wouldn’t do well because I didn’t train.”

Lemos lost to Leslie Smith in her Octagon debut—she replaced Lina Lansberg on short notice—at UFC Fight Night 113 but chose to stay the course and see where the road she had taken would lead. A two-year United States Anti-Doping Agency suspension threatened to derail her progress. However, Lemos continued to train in advance of her return, dropped all the way down to strawweight and proceeded to rattle off five consecutive victories, beating Miranda Granger, Mizuki Inoue, Livinha Souza, Montserrat Ruiz and Angela Hill in succession to become the unlikeliest of contenders at 115 pounds. Though her remarkable run ended with a submission loss to former strawweight champion Jessica Andrade in the UFC Fight Night 205 main event on April 23, the journey to prominence rekindled her love for the sport.

“I’m very proud of everything I’m living through,” Lemos said. “Many times, defeat is a learning experience. Now I’m training hard to get back on the winning path. I’m pretty sure I’ve watched my last fight a thousand times. I learned a lot from it. It was Jessica’s night. It’s all good.”

UFC matchmakers did not afford Lemos the benefit of a soft landing following her ill-fated encounter with Andrade, as she will confront former Invicta Fighting Championships titleholder Michelle Waterson in the UFC on ABC 3 co-main event this Saturday at the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York. Still one of the promotion’s highest-profile competitors at 115 pounds, Waterson has not fought since she dropped a five-round unanimous decision to Marina Rodriguez at UFC on ESPN 24 more than a year ago. Lemos recognizes the challenge—and opportunity—with which she has been presented.

“Michelle is an experienced athlete,” she said. “She’s from a karate base, moves very well and has a variety of leg strikes. She’s dangerous but has many flaws, and that’s what I’m going to work on to win the fight.”

Waterson, a natural atomweight, has more than held her own in the UFC despite often being at a size and strength deficit inside the cage. “The Karate Hottie” carries a 6-5 record across 11 appearances with the organization, her resume highlighted by wins over the aforementioned Hill, Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Cortney Casey and Paige VanZant. Lemos, a former Jungle Fight champion, believes she has the right combination of skills necessary to give Waterson trouble.

“We’re training a lot for Michelle’s game, which is totally different from other opponents I’ve faced,” the Marajo Brothers Team representative said. “I’m doing really well, and I’m highly confident.”