Norma Dumont Is Done Waiting Around

“There is a frustration to it because it’s not just the fights that you saw that fell; there were two more along the way,” continued the 35-year-old, who was penciled in to face Raquel Pennington in September only for the former champion to be forced out of the matchup with an undisclosed injury. “There was a fight at the start of the year, there was a fight in the middle of the year, and it brings out the frustration.

“You feel like you’re more ready than ever to put on a show, that you want to show the performance, and it just doesn’t happen —not because of lack of willpower or trying from the UFC, because the UFC is always trying. I think it’s just a lot of the girls are hesitant to fight me; they don’t want to take me on.”

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To be fair, there is a good reason to want to avoid sharing the Octagon with Dumont.

Since losing her promotional debut in February 2020, “The Immortal” has gone 8-1, including wins over former champ Germaine de Randamie, former title challengers Aldana and Felicia Spencer, and respected stalwarts Aspen Ladd and Karol Rosa. Though several of those bouts came in the largely mothballed featherweight division, her last two efforts have come at 135 pounds and been her best, as she won the third round and the fight with de Randamie before sweeping the scorecards versus Aldana.

And now, to make things even more difficult for her potential adversaries, she’s linked up with the Chute Boxe Diego Lima crew in an effort to take her skills to the next level.

“I think this collab of Norma and Chute Boxe is going to bring an even scarier version of Norma to the Octagon,” she said with a smile as members of the team milled about behind her at the UFC Performance Institute.

The team has been hyper-active of late, with Daniel Santos scoring a win at UFC 320 before Charles Oliveira showed out in Rio de Janeiro. This weekend, both Dumont and Allan Nascimento take to the Octagon, while Dumont’s partner, surging middleweight Marco Tulio, is up next before Ian Machado Garry rounds things out in Qatar.

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“It’s a very powerful energy. We’re loaded with energy,” Dumont said of the Sao Paulo fighter factory. “(It was) ‘Willycat’ before Charles, and then there is Charles, and then there is Allan, then there is me, and we ‘Matuto’ coming up, then after that, Ian; there is so much activity. It’s not just in the UFC; there are so many athletes competing elsewhere as well, so many athletes doing well, and everyone feeds off one another because when one wins, everyone wins and grows.

“It’s a lot of good energy coming up, and everybody is just helping each other to grow.”

And Dumont is ready to carry that good energy into her bout with Vieira and add another victory to the team’s recent run of success on Saturday.

Despite both women being stationed inside the Top 5 in the bantamweight division, the all-Brazilian affair is currently flying slightly under the radar, with the focus on the weight class being trained exclusively on the potential clash between champ Kayla Harrison and the returning “Lioness” Amanda Nunes.

But while that fight doesn’t yet have a date attached to it, Dumont and Vieira are stepping into the Octagon this weekend, and the former is keen on adding her name to the title conversation with another statement effort at the UFC APEX.

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“I think it is going to put me up there for the title,” began Dumont, who enters at No. 4, one spot behind her compatriot and adversary this weekend. “That’s the spot that I think I deserve, where I should be, especially if I have a solid fight, a performance that impresses and gives people something to feast on — a finish, a knockout.

“I think it puts me in that conversation as No. 1 or No. 2, where I should be,” she reiterated. “I should have been there, and there is no backing down from this. I will be in that spot and deservedly so.”

Given that the only people positioned between her and Harrison at this point are Vieira, Pennington, and former champ Julianna Pena (Nunes is not ranked, as she’s not fought), running through Vieira on Saturday and delivering the kind of performance she’s gunning for should put her in that position.

And if that’s how things work out, what’s the plan: will she sit tight and bide her time, waiting on a marquee opportunity, or will she look to stay active and frequently seek to defend her spot?

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“After waiting for a year and change to get a fight booked, I’m not gonna wait around anymore,” she said quickly, shaking her head at the idea of returning to the sidelines for any significant amount of time. “If they want to do the rematch, the trilogy, whatever — I don’t care.

“If I want to be a champion and I believe I’m the best in the division, whether it’s fighting up or fighting down, I have to beat everybody, so I’m not gonna wait around anymore.”

Bantamweights, consider yourselves warned.