Casey O’Neill Found Herself Again

“I think maybe that was my best performance ever and it was coming off so much doubt and uncertainty,” she said with a smile. “I’m proud of myself. I think that was the main thing I felt afterwards. It was a long time out of the cage — hadn’t fought since 2024 — had some really dark days there, and even in camp… When you haven’t fought in a really long time and someone has been fighting at the top level, there’s a lot of questions that go into your head: ‘I haven’t been in there in a long time; am I gonna remember how to do this?’ I really had to trust myself, trust my team. I went back to my original team, and I’ve always put my full trust in them, so when they told me I was ready, I just had to go in there and be free.

“I was finally able to let go, unlike a lot of my previous fights where I feel like I’m very anxious inside the cage. I don’t think I had that that time, which maybe came from just doing it for me, having a long time off, and having nothing to prove; just being excited to be back… I’m gonna keep that energy and hopefully it pulls off another first-round finish. That would be nice, but I’m ready for whatever happens.”

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A fighter’s journey is never just straight lines and good times. There are detours, delays and challenging moments. Generally speaking, for those with the talent and skill to compete at the highest level, those are things that only tend to show up once you’ve reached the big stage, and navigating those moments after so much success is a complicated task.

Signed by the UFC as an undefeated 23-year-old prospect, O’Neill earned three stoppages and a decision win over Roxanne Modafferi to climb into the top-10 of the flyweight division. She was living in Las Vegas, training at Xtreme Couture, and felt on the path towards challenging for championship gold until everything got complicated.

After returning from her first knee injury, O’Neill lost to veteran contender Jennifer Maia and then was submitted by Ariane Da Silva nine months later. Somewhere along the way, she switched gyms, shifting her camp to Fight Ready in Arizona and then had an eight-month stint on the sidelines prior to the fight with Santos. When the second knee injury happened, she felt lost, but returning to Bangtao Muay Thai & MMA in Thailand helped her find herself again.

“I never intended to leave Thailand,” O’Neill said. “It was during COVID, and everybody had a weird part of their life during COVID, and I just happened to be in Las Vegas and get signed to the UFC… I have nothing but respect for everybody at Xtreme who helped me and everybody at Fight Ready who helped me as well, and I did learn and grow a lot from those people too. I just don’t know if they were the correct environments for me. Nothing bad about the gym, just that wasn’t where I was flourishing… As soon as I get back to Thailand, as soon as I get off that flight, a peace just comes over me. It’s just a very happy place for me, and obviously there is a lot to that, but it’s where I started my pro career. I had no money when I lived there previously, and I fought really hard to stay there and get to where I am now, so now that I’m back there, I just feel that same hunger every time I go there.

“When you have something in your life that is as much as fighting is to me, it becomes a part of your identity, and you relate yourself with that,” added O’Neill. “‘I’m Casey; I’m a fighter’ — that’s how I always thought of myself, so to have that forcibly taken away, not be able to do what I love every day, it does shake your identity… But I think it taught me a lot of things too. It taught me to remove myself from the identity of a fighter, that I’m more than a just a fighter, and brought back a lot of love that I had for it before.”

In a lot of ways, it feels like O’Neill’s journey is coming full-circle a couple weeks shy of turning 29, something that causes O’Neill to raise her eyebrows.

“It’s crazy — I feel well and truly grown up in the UFC now,” she said with a smile. “I think I was 22 when I was signed, and obviously there was a little immaturity and (naivete) at that point to think that I was ready, so maybe that was the universes way of slowing me down, as much as I hated it.. I truly feel like the best version of myself in every aspect of my life, so I think everything is coming together at the right time. It is scary to think that I’m about to be 29. I feel like I lost some years there with the injuries and everything, but everyone seems to be peaking around 29, 30 so it is my time to peak, for sure.”

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And after all the different extended stays on the sidelines and injuries, O’Neill is delighted to be returning to action this weekend and stepping back into the fray against Eduarda Moura at Crypto.com UFC 33.

“I think it’s very important to have (an active) schedule, especially when you’re in the rankings,” she said. “I don’t want to hold up the division, don’t want to get bumped out of the rankings just because someone is more active than me or anything like that… This is everything I’ve been wishing for and waiting for, so it’s very exciting to get into the cage for a second time this year and hopefully get to climb the rankings after this one. I feel like I’ve been fighting backwards or fighting stagnant for a while, and I’m excited to make my mark and climb up the rankings.”