Anna Elmose: ‘Of course I was’ surprised to get a call from the UFC

UFC newcomer Anna ‘Panda’ Elmose is hoping to upset the odds on Sunday as she takes on the bigger, and more experienced, Germaine de Randamie at UFC Rotterdam.

Bloody Elbow caught up with the Scandinavian bantamweight and asked how it felt when she learned she would be competing on mixed-martial-arts’ grandest stage.

“I just started crying and kissing my husband, because I was so happy,” said Elmose.

“It just felt like when you’re a kid and you want that special thing, and it’s Christmas, and you almost gave up hope that you would get that thing.”

Elmose has won each of her three pro MMA fights by KO/TKO. When asked if she was surprised to receive a call by the UFC after just a trio of victories, Elmose was emphatic in her response, “Of course I was.”

“Of course I was,” repeated the Dane. “I haven’t been fighting since May last year and I was supposed to fight at Cage Warriors two weeks ago, so I was already in a camp and preparing myself for another fight and when my coach came and said to me the fight was off, I was like, ‘Ok that sucks’, ‘But, it’s only because you’re fighting in the UFC,’ I got quite surprised, because I actually thought that I needed to show a few more fights before they invited me to join the party.”

Though Elmose may be inexperienced in professional MMA the 31-year-old is a veteran of approximately thirty kickboxing, boxing, and Muay Thai fights.

“I started training when I turned twenty-five, and then I had my first full contact fight after three months,” said Elmose.

It was only three years ago that Elmose made the shift to MMA, in what she terms a “natural transition.”

“I started with the boxing and then I slowly added more into it,” said Elmose. “With the kicks, with the clinch, Muay Thai, and eventually – I’d been living in Thailand for a while – when I came back to Denmark, I changed my gym to an MMA gym, but not because I wanted to compete in MMA but because I thought Rumble Sports was the best gym to be training at.”

Copenhagen’s Rumble Sports has risen to become one of Scandinavia’s most reputable gyms and is home to a number of fighters known to UFC fans, such as Nicolas Dalby, Mats Nilsson, and Damir Hadzovic. The gym also houses …

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