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Carli Judice | Just Getting Started
Flyweight Prospect Readies For 2026 Debut After Breakout 2025 Campaign
Carli Judice made her amateur debut five years ago, give or take a week. A collegiate softball player, the Louisiana-native stepped into the cage for the first time in Biloxi, Mississippi, squaring off with Taylor Dagner at Empire FC 9 and secured a second-round stoppage.
This weekend, Judice, who earned back-to-back wins and Performance Bonuses, will make the walk for her fourth UFC appearance, stepping in with Juliana Miller in the opening bout in Houston.
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“2021 Carli was a wreck,” she said with a laugh. “I was 20 years old, maybe 21, and I was a kid, especially as an athlete. I was so new — I played sports my whole life, but as far as being a mature athlete, I wasn’t even close to that, and that’s why I give this sport so much credit for changing me as a person and an athlete. My mindset now is so different than it used to be.
“Me now would tell that Carli to keep going,” she continued. “Even though I did keep going, there are days where I was like, ‘What am I doing? I’m getting smashed every day in jiu jitsu. I should probably just go and be a boxer.’ There were so many times where I was like, ‘What am I doing this for?’ I had people ask me, ‘What’s your Plan B? Are you going back to school?’ and I was like, ‘Nah — I’ll go back to school if I fail at this five years down the road.’
“Now five years down the road, I am where I am,” she added with a proud smile. “Not everybody makes it. This is luck, but it’s also talent, skill, and hard work. It’s all of that sprinkled together. I’m just happy with my life and do feel blessed for the opportunities I get, but I also prepare to capitalize on any opportunities that come my way.”
The road to landing on the 2026 preseason list of Fighters to Watch was anything but smooth for the ascending striker.
Although she cruised through her amateur career and opened her pro career with a trio of first-round finishes, adversity hit at what many would view as the worst possible time.
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Her early success earned her the opportunity to compete on Season 7 of Dana White’s Contender Series, where she landed on the wrong side of a split decision verdict in a competitive and entertaining bout against Ernesta Kareckaite. Despite suffering her first professional loss, Judice was awarded a contract, and made her UFC debut nine months later only to suffer a similar fate.
Two trips under the bright lights yielded two narrow defeats that left the young fighter searching for answers.
“There was definitely a huge mindset shift that I felt and I still feel to this day,” Judice said. “Coming off two losses — I tell this story often: I was undefeated as an amateur (and) as a pro. I didn’t (know) what it was like to lose in an individual sport. I played softball, but we win as a team and lose as a team, but I never put so much work into something and lost.
“It was crushing, but I didn’t let it crush me for long. I just knew those losses really didn’t define me. I knew what I had in me, and I knew how good I could be, so I knew I just had to use those losses to channel and find who I really was.
Carli Judice Knocks Out Yuneisy Duben In The First Round | UFC Fight Night: Vettori vs Dolidze 2
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Carli Judice Knocks Out Yuneisy Duben In The First Round | UFC Fight Night: Vettori vs Dolidze 2
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“I got back to my ‘wanting to hurt somebody’ energy that I had as an amateur and early pro, because I definitely lost it somewhere… I think you lose why you’re doing it at times, but I love doing it because I love to compete. I love to get better. I love to hit people. I love the respect of the sport, and so I just had to find why I’m doing it and the fighter I really wanted to be, and that really clicked for me after those losses.
“I feel ready to go in there and have fun, as opposed to going in there all tense,” Judice added. “I’m excited to fight because I prepare for it, and I want to create a thing of beauty every time I step in there. Me and my coach talk about it all the time: step in there and just make art with how I perform.”
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Over her last two outings, that’s precisely what she’s done.
Initially scheduled to face Miller last February, the former Ultimate Fighter winner was unable to compete, pushing Judice’s first fight of 2025 back a month and landing her opposite Yuneisy Duben. From the start, Judice looked like a different fighter, her striking attuned with her nickname — crispy — and a little more than 90 seconds into the bout, she put shin to chin and put Duben on the deck.
Four months later, she showed out once more, competing in her home state of Louisiana at UFC 318 and conducting a clinic against Nicolle Carliari, dispatching the Brazilian in the third round with a knee to the liver after picking her apart for the previous two rounds.
Probably 20 (out of 10); I can’t describe how it feels, especially being so young in my career,” Judice said of competing in New Orleans last summer. “To not even expect to get an opportunity like that, so for the UFC to give me an opportunity like that on Dustin Poirier’s retirement card was an unreal feeling and will always be an unreal feeling, something I’ll hold close to my heart my entire life. It was awesome.”
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So too was picking up her third bonus in as many appearances, something not too many fighters can lay claim to.
“It changes my life financially, but it also shows me who I am,” she said. “Whenever I have a bad practice, and I’m like, ‘Dang, I sucked today!’ I can remind myself, ‘Carli, look what you’ve done.’ I can be hard on myself, but you have to stop sometimes, slow down and remind yourself what you’ve done.
“It’s changed my life financially — I have a house, I have a car that doesn’t break down every 20 feet like I had three years ago — but it also shows me what I’ve done and I’m definitely proud about it.”
And after a standout 2025 campaign, Judice has big goals she’s chasing inside the Octagon this year although she’s approaching them more as ideal scenarios rather than hard-and-fast “must-haves.”
“Man, I wanna win all my fights, obviously, but if I could break my way into the rankings — Top 15, Top 10 — that would be awesome, but I’m not rushing it either,” she said. “If they want to give me some people out of the rankings for my whole next contract, I’d be fine with that too because I know I have a whole lot to learn.
“I’ll take it one fight at a time, one win at a time, and hopefully one bonus at a time. I can’t be spoiled and chase bonuses, but as long as I’m having fun and being ‘Crispy,’ they should follow.”
UFC Fight Night: Strickland vs Hernandez took place live from Toyota Center in Houston, Texas on February 21, 2026. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!
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