Valerie Loureda responds to critics of viral post-win dance

Valerie Loureda appeared recently on the What the Heck podcast, and discussed her controversial victory dance after defeating Tara Graff at Bellator 243 last Friday.

She hit the buzzer-beater KO and then the celebration began for @valerielouredaa 💥💃

(via @BellatorMMA) pic.twitter.com/XoJEnTs2g4

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) August 8, 2020

She said that the way I promote myself was demoralizing to the sport,” explained Loureda.”When I heard that, it was over for me. I’m crazy and I was gonna go in there to kill her. I wasn’t gonna just hit her soft, it was to kill her.

I don’t take that and I didn’t want to do anything over social media first. I wanted to make it seem like it didn’t get to me because I’m an emotional person and I can be an emotional fighter. I wasn’t letting it get to me until I got in the cage. I got in the cage, proved my point, I shut her up and shut a lot of people up.

This girl was harassing me, literally, every day since January since I had to back out of our fight because of a torn MCL. Every day I would open Twitter and see her stupid name, every day she would post stuff, at me and stuff, and it was just annoying. She was so annoying and I was so excited to just break her face. I’m so happy I don’t have to see her name come up anymore.

It was so satisfying for me because there was so much negative talk before my fight. I hadn’t fought in a long time so it looked like a social media thing, but I was training so hard. It was really frustrating for me just hearing what people would say, the Twitter beefs that I had about my TikToks and the way I am, it just made it that much more satisfying, and I had to be that much more petty after my fight.

I was really, really nervous because I had faced a lot of adversity before that fight and I almost pulled out. I had a chip on my shoulder and, on top of that, I felt I had so much to prove. I also felt like if I could go through what I went through and come out winning, come out doing something spectacular, this would prove to me that I could go through anything in my life and still be successful in my career.

So I had a chip on my shoulder, I was petty, and I don’t say anything. I stay very quiet until the opportunity I had to destroy her face in the cage and that’s what I did.

Loureda was also dealing with personal pressures, which she is keeping private, and she got in a car accident the night before she was scheduled to leave for Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.

I know Val is getting some negative comments for her showing emotions after her win. What you guys don’t know is before she left to Connecticut she got side swiped and wrecked her car. She also went through a pretty bad few days leading up to that. She still puts on a smile and

— Abe kawa (@Abraham_kawa) August 8, 2020

The day before I left I had just finished training at American Top Team, said Loureda. I was close to the weight that I normally leave at, I took a shower after training, I blow dried my hair and I was on the way back from Coconut Creek. I was on the highway and there was a merge. I was in front of a guy and there was a huge, huge, huge, tow truck. He was driving super fast and he tried to pass me on the merge. I freaked out because I had no more space and I tried to break but he didn’t realize that my car was there.

His whole back of his truck hit me and I went spinning in the side of the rail. I broke as hard as I could, and braced as hard as I could and I stopped right before the metal. I swear to god, if I didn’t do that, I would’ve flipped or something. I got hit on the whole side of the car—super strong impact.

As I was bracing myself as hard as I could, all I could think about was getting my hand raised, Loureda said. Like, this can’t be happening to me. It was just really bad. On top of that, I had to wait three hours for the cops and the ambulance. I was like, ‘there’s no way I can win this fight when something like this just happened. I’m supposed to leave at 8 a.m. and it’s 9:00 at night.

I’m like, ‘I can’t be dealing with this right now. I can’t be thinking about this right now. There’s a girl who wants to get in the cage to break my face and I’m dealing with a problem like this. I didn’t think I’d be able to pull through because it was just so much. It was bad. Then I spoke to a sports psychologist and my manager’s sister and they talked sense into me. They said, ‘Valerie, things like this happen to everybody,’ because I thought this was a sign from God telling me not to fight.

I thought, ‘Valerie, if you can overcome something like this and go into the cage, nobody has to know anything. Pretend like it didn’t happen. Put those emotions to the side and use them in the cage. Transfer that energy into the cage,’ and that’s exactly what I did.

I feel so much peace after this fight. I proved a lot to myself which is most important. After this fight I know I can face anything in my life. My mom was a leukemia survivor and that’s what I kept telling myself. I just knew that, even though I’m really young, I had to mature in that moment, take control of my life and my career, and just do it. I’m gonna win and there’s no plan B.

From not fighting for over a year, going on the reality show, losing so much weight, having that problem I had, having my car crushed, my parents went through a huge divorce last year—a lot of people don’t know that—it was just so many life changes at a young age when I’m trying to be something in my career, I could’ve lost myself.

I’m just so proud that I was able to keep that one thing in focus and that’s what I really want for myself. I want to show the world that I’m a high-class martial artist, that I’m a competitor, going through what I’ve gone through I trained as much as I could, I lost the weight, I did everything right. I did face a lot heading into this fight.

People were talking so bad to me before the fight but if they only knew what I’ve been through at my age, and how hard it’s been for me to get here. My family isn’t rich. I’ve done this all myself and it’s all been for my family and my legacy. Here I am. This fight was just emotional. People who don’t know the background won’t understand why I danced like that but I did that because I’m petty.

You talk s*** about my dancing, I’m gonna do dancing TikToks after. That’s just the way I am. It was such a satisfying feeling but I asserted myself as a competitor. What I do at the gym, I know who I am. I’m not gonna let anyone tell me otherwise. I know what I can do in this sport and I know I can be the champ.