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Fatima Kline | Built For This
After Her First Full Training Camp, Strawweight Fatima Kline Looks to Shine In Her Return To The Octagon At UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Ribas 2
Fatima Kline’s nickname, “The Archangel,” is one of the more unique monikers in the fight game, but in another place and time, the New Yorker might have been known as “The Butcher”.
“That would be good,” she laughs. “Yeah. I used to be a butcher at the grocery store I worked at, and I loved doing that. That was actually pretty fun, and I feel like I got to learn so much, but I felt like ‘Archangel’ might've suited me a little bit better. I know a couple people have ‘The Butcher’ as a nickname, so I was like, I want something unique to me.”
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Archangel, Butcher or just Fatima, the 24-year-old from Hyde Park is certainly unique. A two-division champion in the CFFC promotion, Kline is a jiu-jitsu black belt with legit hands, so when she got the short-notice call at just 6-0 to move up from her usual strawweight division to face Jasmine Jasudavicius at flyweight in July, few blinked. Instead, fans and pundits were excited to see what she was going to do in the UFC.
Kline didn’t blink, either.
“Oh, no way,” she said. “I felt like I was totally ready for it. It's funny that you say that, because by my fourth professional fight, I was like, man, when am I going to get in there?”
In that fourth fight, in March of 2023, Kline decisioned Natalia Kuziutina. All four of her pro bouts took place in the respected Invicta FC promotion, and a month earlier, her friend and main training partner Jessica Andrade submitted Jessica Andrade in her first UFC main event, proving that the young guns from the east coast were ready for prime time. But looking back, Kline realized she had a little more work to do.
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“I think it was good that the UFC didn't call me by the fourth fight,” she said. “I felt like I needed to grow more. I needed to focus more and get myself together. My diet at my fourth fight wasn't right. And I feel like through the mistakes that I've made in my first couple pro fights, it really led me to who I am now as a fighter. And I feel like when the UFC called me, it was perfect timing. It was definitely in God's plan for me to hold back to my seventh fight, and it was really good to go out there and kind of have a good performance even on 10 days’ notice. But I was definitely mentally ready to take the next step.”
That next step led to the first loss of Kline’s pro career, but to lose a competitive decision to the Top 15-ranked Jasudavicius up a division and on short notice was impressive. And as she preps for a Saturday matchup against Viktoriia Dudakova, her confidence hasn’t slipped in the slightest.
“This will be my eighth professional fight, but this will be the first fight I've ever had eight weeks to prepare for, so I'm super excited to go in there with a full fight camp,” said Kline. “I think I've learned so much about having an eight-week camp, so much about my training and my dieting, and I just feel like I have time to prepare now. I have time to focus, and I have time to strategize. I have time for mistakes to be made and mistakes to be fixed. It's pretty hard to do that on 10 days’ notice.”
As for remaining at 125 pounds, where she won one of her CFFC titles, that’s not on the to-do list for now.
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“I knew right off the bat that I wanted to go back to 115,” Kline said. “I train with Erin Blanchfield, and I could feel the weight difference in training, so I definitely know that that's not my weight class to stay in. I feel big for 115. I feel tall, I feel thick, and I know that's just where I belong.”
And truth be told, it would look better to see two UFC belts in the gym instead of Blanchfield fighting over one.
“Yeah, that as well,” she laughs. “We train too much together in order to one day just wind up fighting each other. And it'd be so cool. We train at the same gym, so to be able to bring two belts back at two different weight classes, it'd be real fun.”
Fun. It seems to be the operative word for Kline, who just became an aunt to twin boys after her sister gave birth. Sure, fighting is hard, but there’s no place she’d rather be, and that’s been the way she’s felt for most of the last 14 years.
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“At 10 years old and through middle school, the only thing I ever thought about was fighting,” she recalls. “And then high school was where I was like, is this what I want to do? I did major in criminal justice for one semester at a Dutchess Community College, and I dropped out after that semester and was like, I can't do that. Fighting's definitely for me. And after my amateur debut, I just knew it was what I wanted to do.
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“I felt a little torn in high school,” Kline continues. “It's a hard time sometimes, choosing a career that you'll make the rest of your life. You could always change careers, but a lot of people normally hold on to one for their time. But yeah, I was kind of going back and forth. I'm like, do I want to get into law enforcement and do that? Do I want to be a fighter? Is this something I can do? And then getting over all the obstacles that I faced, my amateur debut and how I was able to overcome them and still come out victorious, I just felt like fighting was really meant for me, and I think that put a stamp on it that I can do it. I am built to do it. I have a gift in it, and I took the step and that gift and ran with it.”
She’s still running. All the way to Vegas, where she’s not letting the fact that she’s a -800 favorite distract from her focus.
“When I hear that, I'm like, wow, it's crazy,” Kline said. “But I'm glad people think I'm going to win. I am fully confident I'm going to win. I'm fully confident I'm going to finish her. And yeah, I just try to stay grounded. The quality of training that I put in, and the people I have around me, how they pour everything into me, is super helpful. I'm super grateful for all of them, and I'm just super excited to be in my weight class and to prove that I'll be one of the best in my weight class.”
UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Ribas 2 took place live from UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 11, 2025. 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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