After Rough Go at 135, Aspen Ladd ‘Extremely Excited’ to Compete as PFL Featherweight

Until recently, the Professional Fighters League has been little more than the Kayla Harrison show at 155 pounds when it comes to women’s MMA.

That’s going to change for the next season, as the promotion plans to unveil a 145-pound weight class in 2023. The first female featherweight bout will take place on the main card of the PFL Championship event on Nov. 25, with Aspen Ladd squaring off against Julia Budd. Ladd, who recently signed with the organization after a seven-bout stint in the UFC, is thrilled that the PFL has elected to build an oft-overlooked division.

“I’m extremely excited that they decided to do that,” Ladd said. “As I said, going into this it’s like, ‘Oh they have a 155 – which is you walk in at whatever you’re walking around that basically.’ But for them to actually have a 145 division, and the fact that they actually want to put effort in, and they want to flush it out, that is exciting.”

Ladd began her UFC tenure as a promising bantamweight prospect, but she ultimately earned more attention for her struggles on the scale and the fight cancellations that often occurred as a result. Most recently, she missed weight by two pounds for a proposed bout against Sara McMann at UFC Fight Night 210 on Sept. 17. That was her third time missing weight in the Las Vegas-based promotion, and it would lead to her release. Ladd claims that she wanted to move to featherweight, but opportunities to do so were limited in the UFC.

“The last couple of years, it’s been my desire to move up,” she said. . “And in the UFC they have that division, but they’re really not putting any effort or attention into it. It kind of exists because Amanda [Nunes] has the belt right now .…”

She added that the failed weight cut prior to the McMann fight clinched her decision to remain at 145 pounds for the foreseeable future.

“So yeah, that was kind of like the last straw. I know I can’t. Like, I can barely sometimes make 135 and every single time is bad, so it was more of a health thing,” Ladd said. “For this last cut, that was the leanest I’ve come in. I started that cut at 142 pounds and after three I just dried up. So during that whole six hours of roasting and not sweating anymore, just feeling like I’m dying, I’m like, ‘I’m never doing this again. I’m done.’ Whatever the course may be, it’s 45 from here on out.”

Ladd’s struggles date back to a matchup with Germaine de Randamie at UFC Fight Night 155 in July 2019. Although she hit the mark for that bout, she was visibly shaking on the scales and would go on to suffering a 16-second stoppage defeat. Ladd tried to stay the course at bantamweight because the opportunities were more plentiful there than at 145 pounds. Now she won’t have to worry about that with the PFL adding the division to its season format.

“Because that’s the only place [in the UFC] where there was opportunity for me, and you fight where you have that,” Ladd said. “And yeah, at the end they didn’t [allow her to fight at featherweight]. And honestly, for anybody else that’s currently in that division, start looking at your options. If you can be one of the ones that drops, do it.”