Carla Esparza

BIOGRAPHY

Carla Esparza is an American mixed martial artist and former UFC Strawweight Champion. She currently competes in the women’s flyweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Carla is widely regarded as one of the top female fighters in MMA today, having fought her way to a world title.

Esparza was born on October 10, 1987 in Torrance California and began training martial arts at age 13 when she joined a karate school. After her first year of training, she competed in numerous tournaments around Southern California and won several titles throughout her career. In June 2008, Carla became a professional mixed martial artist and started training for MMA full time with legendary trainer Javier Mendez at American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) in San Jose, CA.

In 2011, Carla entered “The Ultimate Fighter: A Champion Will Be Crowned” season 20 tournament with the goal of becoming the UFC’s inaugural strawweight champion—which she did by defeating Rose Namajunas via unanimous decision on December 12th 2014 to win the championship belt. She held onto it until March 2015 when Joanna Jedrzejczyk defeated her to take over as titleholder.

Since then, Carla has gone on to compete against some of the best fighters in both strawweight and flyweight divisions—including Claudia Gadelha twice (once for Invicta FC) and Joanne Calderwood twice (once for UFC Fight Night). She also picked up impressive wins against Alexa Grasso, Randa Markos, Angela Hill and Marina Rodriguez during that time span as well as taking home Performance Bonus awards after fights versus Jessica Aguilar & Cynthia Calvillo among others.

Most recently Esparza returned from an 18-month layoff due to injury issues which had kept her sidelined since late 2019; but made quite a statement upon being back inside the octagon by winning impressively via TKO against veteran fighter Michelle Waterson at UFC Vegas 5 this past August 2020! With such inspiring performances over formidable opponents throughout her career thus far—it’s no wonder why fans view Carla with much admiration!