Athletes
GILLIAN ROBERTSON | CHASING RECORDS, TITLE OPPORTUNITY
Streaking Strawweight Talks Rescheduled Clash, Championship Case
The great New York Yankees catcher and baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra was known for his slightly odd, unintentional witticisms that became known as “Yogi-isms,” with one of the most popular being “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
While the beloved ballplayer cited the repeated back-to-back home runs of teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris being the origin point for the remark, this week, it applies to the standout strawweight fight between Gillian Robertson and Amanda Lemos that serves as the co-main event of Saturday’s return to Meta APEX in Las Vegas.
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Originally booked for the final event of 2025, the Top 10 pairing was postponed on the day of the fight when Lemos was removed from the contest due to a mouth injury. Now, three months later, they’re set to run it back.
“They were trying to reschedule this fight for February 20-something, and I was like, ‘No, I need it back a little further’ because I need some time to recover from that weight cut, just to get my body back to normal before we bring it back to starving again,” Robertson said. “I gave myself a couple weeks —enjoyed Christmas, enjoyed New Years, and then got back to work.”
Every fighter understands when they sign up for this career that fights are going to fall apart for one reason or another, and on the way up the regional ranks, it’s fairly common for opponents to get cold feet during fight week or be swapped out at the 11th hour.
Switches and cancellations happen regularly in the UFC as well, with the 30-year-old Robertson having been through a couple during her nine-year tenure competing in the Octagon, but seldom do you see both competitors weigh-in looking ready to go and make it to fight day feeling fit before the bout is scrapped.
Ask any fighter and they’ll tell you that stepping into the cage and competing is the reward for all the hard work they put in during camp, as well as the chance to release all the energy that has been built up with that day in mind, and so being denied the opportunity to do so can be jarring.
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“I honestly processed it emotionally like I would a loss,” Robertson said regarding the postponed December encounter. “Because I didn’t get that gratification, that feeling of winning, it just felt like I did lose.
“I would almost prefer to lose because then I would have at least tried, but I didn’t even get to try; it was taken away from me completely,” she added. “For a good two weeks, I almost felt depressed; it really felt like I lost the fight.
“I have lost before; I do know what it feels like, and I do know how to reset after that,” continued Robertson. “One of the most valuable things that I feel like I’ve ever learned in life was after I got TKO’ed by Maycee Barber and I was walking out of the Octagon, my coach — as I’m on the steps —is telling me, ‘It’s over. It’s over.’
Gillian Robertson | Submission Showcase
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Gillian Robertson | Submission Showcase
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“You just have to realize it’s over and we move on; we have to move forward from this. It doesn’t matter what happened — we can’t change it now —we just have to look at March 14 now and make sure that’s perfect.”
A self-admitted “glass half full” type, one of the positives Robertson was able to take away from the initial cancellation and rescheduling to this weekend was that it meant she was able to re-work her training camp and put something together that felt a little more solid.
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With the first fight coming towards the end of the year and running through Thanksgiving, bodies were hard to come by, so she spent a lot of time in the gym working with two male training partners, meaning more often than naught, she was the nail, and didn’t get many opportunities to be the hammer.
“This camp, I had a bunch of girls and those two boys to play with, so I got to work with a bit of both,” she said with a smile. “I felt like I had a lot better camp this time around, so I feel like it was a blessing as a whole that it went like this.”
The matchup with Lemos was one that Robertson had wanted and called for following her May win over Marina Rodriguez, which extended her winning streak to four and carried her into a tied with former two-division champion Amanda Nunes for the most finishes in UFC women’s history with 10.
Her wish was granted, and so on the eve of finally stepping into the Octagon with Lemos, it felt pertinent to ask if there was someone “The Savage” has her sights on if she extends her run of success to five and breaks that tie with Nunes by collecting another finish this weekend.
“I think if I go out there and perform the way that I expect to, I don’t see why I wouldn’t get a shot at Mackenzie Dern at this point,” Robertson stated confidently. “I feel like I do deserve a title shot, especially with a good performance over a Top 5 Amanda Lemos.
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“It’s been a fight that I feel like has been ‘in the making’ for years: her being the black belt coming off over, a lot of accolades in jiu jitsu, and me having the most submissions, being the jiu jitsu girl over here. I think it’s a fight that everybody has wanted to see for a long time.
“I think it’s the perfect story,” she added. “I’ve really expected this fight for a long time, so for it to happen for the belt and make it that much bigger, I think it’s just meant to be.”
Of course, she has to get through Lemos first.
The Brazilian veteran has been in the position Robertson is hoping to earn this weekend, having challenged for championship gold at UFC 292, where she dropped a lopsided decision to Zhang Weili. She then rebounded by beating Dern six months later, but has dropped two of three since, getting out-grappled by both Virna Jandiroba and Tatiana Suarez.
Still, the 38-year-old is a power puncher and tenured member of the strawweight elite.
“I think Amanda is aggressive, she’s gonna come at me, swingin’ hard,” said Robertson, offering her perspective on how the fight plays out this weekend. “She makes a lot of big movements in those where she leaves a lot of holes and opportunities where I will find my takedown.
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“I think she might be bold enough to try to explode and get up, which is where I’m gonna find my submissions, but these last couple girls have been playing such a safe game where I’ve almost been forced into my TKOs.
“Either works for me, but I wanna push that submission record too, so I hope she’s a little bolder,” she added with a giggle and a smile.
At the end of the day, any kind of finish gives Robertson sole possession of the finish record, and if she gets it, “that means I’ll have the record for most submissions, the record for the most finishes, and it just furthers my point of why I deserve that belt.”
So now there is nothing left to do, but to do it.
UFC Fight Night: Emmett vs Vallejos took place live from Meta APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 14, 2026. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!