{"id":295521,"date":"2023-11-05T09:24:50","date_gmt":"2023-11-05T09:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/?p=295521"},"modified":"2023-11-05T09:24:50","modified_gmt":"2023-11-05T09:24:50","slug":"ufc-star-molly-mccann-wins-her-pro-grappling-debut-at-polaris-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/mma\/ufc-star-molly-mccann-wins-her-pro-grappling-debut-at-polaris-26\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC star Molly McCann wins her pro grappling debut at Polaris 26"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Molly McCann wins her pro grappling debut at Polaris 26 after submitting her opponent with an armbar&#8230; before emotional UFC star admits struggles with online hate in post-fight speech<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>UFC star Molly McCann made her pro grappling debut during Polaris 26\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8216;Meatball&#8217; won via an armbar before delivering an emotional post-fight speech\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Listen to Mail Sport&#8217;s new boxing podcast THE HOOK &#8211; with exclusive interviews\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>UFC star Molly McCann recorded an impressive win in her pro grappling debut before delivering an emotional post-fight speech about her recent battles with online hate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>McCann, who boasts a professional mixed martial arts record of 13-6, made her grappling debut at Polaris 26 in Southampton on Saturday night, where she\u00a0took on fellow British MMA star Julia Scardone.<\/p>\n<p>During the bout, &#8216;Meatball&#8217; locked in an armbar on her opponent to secure the win, with nearly eight minutes remaining in their fight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Afterwards, the Liverpudlian fighter delivered an emotional post-fight speech which reflected on recent online hate she&#8217;s received following her back-to-back UFC defeats.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I&#8217;m being a bit emotional because I&#8217;ve been rinsed alive because of my last two fights in the UFC,&#8217; McCann said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/05\/06\/77418285-12712133-image-a-6_1699166696101.jpg\" height=\"601\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Molly &#8216;Meatball&#8217; McCann secured a win in her pro grappling debut at Polaris 26 on Saturday<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/05\/06\/77418283-12712133-image-m-4_1699166685127.jpg\" height=\"289\" width=\"306\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/05\/06\/77418287-12712133-image-a-5_1699166690081.jpg\" height=\"289\" width=\"306\"><\/p>\n<p>The UFC star forced her opponent, Julia Scardone, to tap after locking an armbar<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I&#8217;m sorry for being emotional but it&#8217;s hard to take on the chin every day and silence [my critics].\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I&#8217;ve just come here at the mercy of everyone online to do something I&#8217;m not that great at, or people think I&#8217;m not that great at. But here we are, I&#8217;ve got a win.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>McCann has fallen to back-to-back defeats in the UFC after losing via submission against both\u00a0Erin Blanchfield and Julija Stoliarenko in the flyweight division.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Both losses came within the first round of the fight, leading fans to call in to question McCann&#8217;s grappling skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 33-year-old is expected to return to the UFC at the start of 2024 and already teased fans with an update regarding her potential return.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Taking to Instagram at the start of the month, McCann wrote: &#8216;Contract signed, redemption time&#8217;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In July,\u00a0<span>McCann suffered a brutal first-round defeat to\u00a0Julija Stoliarenko during <\/span>UFC<span> <\/span>London&#8217;s co-main event.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Meatball&#8217; was forced to tap within two minutes of the fight after her Lithuanian counterpart locked in an armbar in-front of a packed out O2 Arena.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It was a disappointing defeat for McCann, who hardly got a chance to show off her impressive striking ability during the bout.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/05\/06\/77418289-12712133-image-a-10_1699166797579.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>McCann has suffered back-to-back submission defeats in our last two UFC outings<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2023\/10\/25\/The%20Hook_Promo_Desktop.636.png\"><br \/>\nSource: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/mma\/article-12712133\/Molly-McCann-wins-pro-grappling-debut-Polaris-26-submitting-opponent-armbar-emotional-UFC-star-admits-struggles-online-hate-post-fight-speech.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Molly McCann wins her pro grappling debut at Polaris 26 after submitting her opponent with an armbar&#8230; before emotional UFC star admits struggles with online hate in post-fight speech UFC star Molly McCann made her pro grappling debut during Polaris 26\u00a0 &#8216;Meatball&#8217; won via an armbar before delivering an emotional post-fight speech\u00a0 Listen to Mail [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>UFC star Molly McCann wins her pro grappling debut at Polaris 26 - Sports Life Tale<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/mma\/ufc-star-molly-mccann-wins-her-pro-grappling-debut-at-polaris-26\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UFC star Molly McCann wins her pro grappling debut at Polaris 26 - Sports Life Tale\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Molly McCann wins her pro grappling debut at Polaris 26 after submitting her opponent with an armbar&#8230; 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before emotional UFC star admits struggles with online hate in post-fight speech UFC star Molly McCann made her pro grappling debut during Polaris 26\u00a0 &#8216;Meatball&#8217; won via an armbar before delivering an emotional post-fight speech\u00a0 Listen to Mail [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/mma\/ufc-star-molly-mccann-wins-her-pro-grappling-debut-at-polaris-26\/","og_site_name":"Sports Life Tale","article_published_time":"2023-11-05T09:24:50+00:00","author":"Robert","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_image":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/UFC-star-Molly-McCann-wins-her-pro-grappling-debut-at-Polaris-26.jpg","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Robert","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/mma\/ufc-star-molly-mccann-wins-her-pro-grappling-debut-at-polaris-26\/","url":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/mma\/ufc-star-molly-mccann-wins-her-pro-grappling-debut-at-polaris-26\/","name":"UFC star Molly McCann wins her pro grappling debut at Polaris 26 - Sports Life Tale","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-11-05T09:24:50+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-05T09:24:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/#\/schema\/person\/74db1979fe71b5ea01513ec1ce5bc609"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/mma\/ufc-star-molly-mccann-wins-her-pro-grappling-debut-at-polaris-26\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/mma\/ufc-star-molly-mccann-wins-her-pro-grappling-debut-at-polaris-26\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/mma\/ufc-star-molly-mccann-wins-her-pro-grappling-debut-at-polaris-26\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"MMA","item":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/category\/mma\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"UFC star Molly McCann wins her pro grappling debut at Polaris 26"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/","name":"Sports Life Tale","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/#\/schema\/person\/74db1979fe71b5ea01513ec1ce5bc609","name":"Robert","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d7cef2e0d8d634cb49d54f7c48b549a1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d7cef2e0d8d634cb49d54f7c48b549a1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Robert"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}