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Manon Fiorot Is Focused On Herself
After Spending Her Training Camp In Canada, France’s Manon Fiorot Looks To Cement Her Spot In The Flyweight Title Picture At UFC Fight Night: de Ridder vs Allen
When a fighter takes a methodical path to a title shot, the triumph or disappointment at the end of that path often hits harder. Such was the case for Manon Fiorot. The Frenchwoman was identified as a potential title contender from the moment she made her Octagon debut in January 2021. As Valentina Shevchenko ran through contenders faster than the division could produce them, people saw Fiorot’s slick standup game and big frame for the division and wondered whether “The Beast” could unseat “Bullet.”
Fiorot ripped off six wins over the next two years, including a victory over Rose Namajunas that most presumed would grant her a title shot. However, Alexa Grasso would submit Shevchenko two weeks later, kicking off a trilogy stretched across 18 months. To Fiorot’s credit, she didn’t sit and wait for things to play out. Instead, she cemented herself as the No. 1 contender with a main event victory over Erin Blanchfield in March 2024. Fourteen months later, she finally duked it out with Shevchenko with UFC gold on the line at UFC 315.
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Things didn’t go as planned, though. Shevchenko got out ahead early, and while Fiorot put together a gritty bid for the belt, she fell to the champion on all three scorecards. It was the first loss in the Octagon for Fiorot as well as her first letdown since her professional debut in June 2018. Afterward, Fiorot said she lost motivation to train, an understandable reaction to seeing years of work and sacrifice result in the belt wrapped around somebody else’s waist. Five months removed from that bout, Fiorot views that experience fondly as she heads into a bout with Jasmine Jasudavicius at UFC Fight Night: de Ridder vs Allen.
“(It) changed everything,” Fiorot told UFC.com. “To be honest, I think losing this fight was good for me. I can do new things. I can go outside. Perhaps, if I won that fight, I don’t go to Canada to train and meet new people and new sparring partners. Definitely, we have Manon 2.0 because of my loss.”
A major part of that transformation was a decision to move her training camp to Tristar Gym in Montreal under the direction of the well-seasoned and respected Fares Zahabi.
Together with her partner and coach Aldric Cassata, Fiorot took a fine-toothed comb to her skill set. The 35-year-old reaped the benefits from the change of scenery, something she hopes to showcase in Rogers Arena on October 18.
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“Awesome coach, awesome sparring partners, a lot of boys and girls, and I learned a lot,” she said. “I changed a lot in my camp, so definitely one of my best experiences and best camps in my career… Can confirm, (Zahabi) is one of the best in the world. We worked a lot on ground game, standup game, game plan, so this is the perfect condition for me.
“If I had to talk about this camp, every day I (felt) pleasure to go training and think about the fight and to work. All the days, I was happy to work and have the journey of an MMA fighter.”
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With the flyweight title going back up for grabs at UFC 322: Della Maddalena vs Makhachev, when Shevchenko faces former strawweight champion Zhang Weili, Fiorot could do well for herself should she perform to her expectations in Vancouver. She has a game opponent in Jasudavicius, who rides into the fight on a 5-fight winning streak and most recently submitted Jéssica Andrade at UFC 315.
Jasudavicius, at 5-foot-7 and a 68-inch reach, is one of the few flyweights who can match Fiorot’s frame. She uses that to great success in clinch situations and along the fence, which could present Fiorot some challenges if she cannot maintain distance and get her kickboxing going.
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It is also, however, a perfect platform to show off any and all improvements Fiorot made while training a couple providences over from where the two will duke it out. Jasudavicius will undoubtedly have the crowd behind her, but Fiorot is less concerned with anything going on outside of the Octagon. In fact, she doesn’t care much about what people glean from her performance on October 18.
She doesn’t have a statement in mind; she just wants her work to do the talking for her.
“I don’t think about the message outside,” she said. “I just think about me, focus on myself, and I just want my performance to be like my camp. I have pleasure to train, and I really want to show my new skills and just focus on myself.”
UFC Fight Night: De Ridder vs Allen took place live from Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Canada on October 18, 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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