{"id":37431,"date":"2026-03-24T14:58:51","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/UFC-London-bonus-winner-admits-she-used-to-hate-MMA-200570"},"modified":"2026-03-24T14:58:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T14:58:51","slug":"ufc-london-bonus-winner-admits-she-used-to-hate-mma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/ufc-london-bonus-winner-admits-she-used-to-hate-mma\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC London bonus winner admits she used to hate MMA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n

Shanelle
\nDyer<\/a>, who made a spectacular debut at
\nUFC London<\/a>, used to initially hate MMA. <\/p>\n

Dyer was in love with the striking arts, having trained in muay
\nthai since the age of 8. While Dyer still loves muay thai, she
\nunderstood at some point that there was not much money to be made
\nin the sport. Dyer had to choose between transitioning to boxing or
\nMMA, and chose MMA as she didn\u2019t want to give up kicking. <\/p>\n

\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Dyer admits that she initially found the grappling part of MMA a
\nlittle \u201cfruity.\u201d However, she started appreciating the nuances of
\ngrappling once she started learning the art.<\/p>\n

Gaining an Appreciation<\/h2>\n

\u201cI used to hate MMA,\u201d Dyer said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.\u201d<\/a> \u201cI\u2019ve done muay thai
\nfor so long, and I love muay thai. Muay thai is beautiful, muay
\nthai is amazing. Unfortunately, you can\u2019t make money in muay thai.
\nSo I transitioned to MMA when I was 17-18. It was either boxing or
\nMMA. But I love kicking too much to do boxing. So I chose MMA at
\nthe end of the day. I just thought MMA was a bit weird. I thought
\ngrappling was a bit fruity because I didn\u2019t understand it. So I was
\nlike, I don\u2019t want to watch people hug people. I just want to watch
\nstriking, so watch muay thai or K-1. I started MMA, and then I
\nstarted appreciating how hard MMA is, how hard jiu-jitsu is, when I
\nstarted learning.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dyer (7-1) suffered her only career loss against Carol Folo on
\n
\nDana White’s Contender Series<\/a> last year. Despite coming up
\nshort on the Contender Series, Dyer earned a contract and made her
\ndebut in front of a home crowd at UFC London last year. Dyer
\ndropped her opponent, Ravena
\nOliveira<\/a>, with knees in the second round and finished her with
\nvicious ground-and-pound. \u201cThe Nightmare\u201d also earned a $100,000
\n\u201cPerformance of the Night\u201d bonus for her debut win. <\/p>\n