Joanne Calderwood dreams of ‘stand-up war’ with Ariane Lipski at UFC 233

Joanne Calderwood has been relishing the thoughts of a stand-up war in the Octagon ever since she signed on the dotted line with the UFC.

The Scot doesn’t feel like she has been fulfilled in her quest for a slobber knocker, but the nickname of her upcoming UFC 233 opponent Ariane Lipski — “Violence Queen” — suggests that her fortune is about to change.

Despite the former KSW flyweight champion’s reputation, Calderwood still doesn’t want to get her hopes up considering how things have gone for her so far in her MMA career.

“I’ve watched a few of her fights now and I’ll probably study her more over the next few weeks. I see her style and I see she has great technique and she’s aggressive,” said Calderwood on the latest episode of Eurobash.

“Every fight I go into I feel like [my opponent will strike with me]. Ahead of the last one I was thinking, ‘Man, this is going to be a standup war, this what I’ve been waiting for’. Then look what happened…within the first few exchanges she took me down.”

While Calderwood was happy to claim a second win in as many outings as a UFC flyweight with her slick triangle armbar Kalindra Faria, she still would have preferred to claim the victory from an epic back and forth.

“That was a great win for me because I got the submission and it was huge boost in confidence for me, but at the same time, I’m always going to be looking for that stand-up war. Every opponent I get, especially this one [I think it will be a stand up war], but I don’t want to get too excited. When I watch her fights more and more I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, this is the one’, but I’ll be going into the Octagon knowing that it’s never happened before in my other MMA fights.”

Calderwood cited Yair Rodriguez’s recent battle with Chan Sung Jung when she went into detail about the kind of fight she hopes to get from Lipski.

“It takes two to tango and I feel like every time I’m going in there with bad intentions. I just want to put on a show for the fans I have not been fulfilled in that regard with my MMA career,” she explained.

“We just saw that fight at the weekend [Chan Sung Jung vs. Yair Rodriguez], that was a crazy war and those are the fights that I dream of. I just don’t feel like I’ve found that dance partner that’s going to give me that fight yet. Hopefully this next one will fulfill my dream of standing in the UFC Octagon, being bloody and being like, ‘Come on, is that all you’ve got?’”

She hopes that her intricate submission win over Faria will dissuade future opponents from taking her down:

“In the gym now I’ve been pulling submissions out of my arse! I’m thinking, ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ I think it’s just been this year. Since I left Tristar in Canada and I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do as a fighter and a person, I feel like everything is coming together now. I’m doing the right thing, I’m not cutting corners…everything is about my career and being professional.”