Sophie Cunningham had never attended a UFC event before Saturday night. By the end of it, she had worked one.
The Indiana Fever guard made a surprise appearance as an Octagon girl at UFC 329 in Las Vegas, carrying the Round 1 card before the co-main event between Paddy Pimblett and Benoit Saint-Denis.
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Speaking to reporters Sunday, Cunningham explained how the last-minute cameo came together.
“Went to my first live fight last night, which was so cool,” Cunningham said. “The whole experience overall was wonderful.”
Cunningham said UFC CEO Dana White came over to say hello during the event, and she decided to throw an idea out there.
“Dana came over to say what’s up and I was like, ‘Hey, if you need a ring girl, let me know,’ and he’s like, ‘Alright, first round for the Paddy fight, that’s you,’” she said.
At first, Cunningham thought he was joking.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, hah,’ and he was like, ‘No, seriously,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, God,’” she said. “It was so much fun, though. It was a great environment.”
There was no rehearsal, but Cunningham figured the job was simple enough.
“At the end of the day, you pull the card up and you turn left. Hopefully, I could do that,” she said. “But the ring girls, actually, the real ones, they were helping me. It was fun. They were like, ‘You have to have a little personality, a little sass to it.’ It was a good time.”
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Personality and sass have never exactly been a problem for Sophie Cunningham.
And White returned the favor Sunday by showing up to the Fever-Aces game wearing a Sophie Cunningham shirt.
He picked a pretty good day to support his newest Octagon girl.
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Indiana walloped the defending champion Aces, 109-75, and Cunningham came off the bench to score 20 points on 7-of-9 shooting. She also knocked down six of her seven attempts from beyond the arc, making more 3-pointers by herself than the entire Las Vegas roster.
Not a bad Vegas trip.
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