Competing in her first full PFL season, Aspen Ladd returns to action June 16 at PFL 5, where she’s paired with Karolina Sobek.
While the fight isn’t exactly a short detour, since Ladd has known the history of fighting for a while now, there’s still a relatively small window between her first fight in April, and the meeting with Sobek.
Fortunately for Ladd, who now competes as a featherweight, she no longer kills herself to gain 135 pounds.
“I don’t really get out of the gym anyway after a fight. With this one, the only difference is when I got home I got really sick right away, so I had a week where I had to take it easy.” It’s a little different for me. At age 45. I’m not dying to make a weight class. So, it’s just a matter of staying in the gym and keeping your diet at a maintenance level.”
When it comes to Sobek, Ladd will have a definite advantage in both experience and level of competition. Ladd noted, “Everybody in the tournament has something they’re good at, but I have quite a bit of experience.” “And I think that will always be helpful.”
On the flip side, Ladd, who only found out who her opponent was two weeks ago, tried “not to get too caught up in the individual. Now I know, and my coaches have looked for her and that sort of thing.”
After he lost a decision against Olena Kolesnyk in PFL 2, the points system that the PFL now uses is a huge factor. And the pressure increased.
“This is definitely something new. You won’t experience this anywhere else than in the PFL. The pressure to get out and not just get the job done, but to get it done in a certain amount of time in order to get the most points and get ahead, that’s an added pressure. But any fight is a A bunch of pressure. So just a little extra.”
However, Ladd knows she likely needs six points to advance into the playoffs, which would mean a first-round finish. Which shaped how I looked at this fight.
“It’s a very big deal to get as many points as possible. The whole point of a fight is to be able to go out and basically treat it like a five-minute fight,” Ladd told us. “So I hope she wants to fight and if not, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to go out and make it happen.”
2023 was the biggest year yet for the Professional Football League, which signed the likes of Jake Paul, Cedric Dombey and Francis Ngannou. From now on, it is expected to split Super-Fight and Pay-Per-View Shows. With Ladd’s profile there’s always a chance she’ll get involved, as last year she was in an accidental fight with Julia Budd.
I haven’t thought much about it yet, as far as ‘I want to have a huge card with these guys. Because right now my focus is all on the championship. But more than that, they say ‘You’re fighting this date, you’re fighting this history.’ If you end up getting a giant card with these guys, like sweet! It’s an added bonus, it’s a benefit.” .
Watch our full interview with 2023 PFL 5’s Aspen Ladd above.