UFC Fight Night 89: Valérie Létourneau hoping to 'fight the perfect fight' at UFC Ottawa

Valérie Létourneau today spoke exclusively to The Independent ahead of her historic fight at UFC Ottawa against Joanne Calderwood

Valerie Letourneau faces Joanne Calderwood at UFC Fight Night 89 (Getty)

In just over a weeks’ time, Canadian mixed martial artist Valérie Létourneau will take on Scottish star Joanne Calderwood in the first ever UFC women's flyweight matchup. The fight takes place at UFC Ottawa in Canada and while it will go down in history as the maiden 125lbs fight in the UFC's women's roster, Calderwood is someone Létourneau always expected to face at some point in her career.

"She's some I always expected to fighter sooner rather than later," Letourneau said. "She's a tough fighter and I have a lot of respect for her and I have zero doubt in my mind that this is going to be a great fight.

"She's a really good striker and we both like to fight on the feet so I think it's going to end up being a standup war. She's a real fighter and I know she's someone that simply never gives up. She's going to show up to fight so I'm going to push until the end."

The fight for Létourneau isn't just exciting for her because of the quality of her opponent. The Canadian believes that fighting at flyweight will see her unlock an extra level of performance and that she will be able to perform a lot better having not gone through the stress of cutting weight to make the 115lbs limit. Létourneau believes we will see a whole different fighter in the Octagon come fight night.

"I'm really one of those in between fighters," Letourneau said in regards to her weight class. "I'm too small for bantamweight (135lbs), but when I did the cut for 115lb three times I find it really hurts my body and I can tell it affects me during the fight.

"One of the things I found with my fight against Jonna Jędrzejczyk was that although I had a perfect camp, when it came to 24 hours out and I had to cut the weight, it really hurt my body and I felt it also hurt my performance.

"Now [at flywieght] I can focus on my performance and I think I'm going to do better out there and have better mental focus also. This is the fighting weight I should be fighting at."

Valerie Letourneau suffered defeat at UFC 193 by Joanna Jedrzejczyk (Getty)

Létourneau's last outing in the Octagon came at UFC 193 in November when she lost via a unanimous decision to the aforementioned Joanna Jędrzejczyk in a UFC strawweight title fight. While the defeat was tough to take, Létourneau believes she took some big learnings away from the fight and that she will come back better than ever before.

"It's always easy to look after and say, 'I should have done this' or 'I should have done that', but I think I've come away knowing that I have to change some of my plans in the fight to give me a better chance to win and I now recognise that when you get the chance to finish, you have to make it count and get the finish.

"During the fight, you may remember that Joanna hit me with a big head kick. People say I was really tough for taking it but believe me, it was really a tough one to take. All my focus and adrenaline after that was just on trying to survive and keep pushing. It's funny they say, 'you always have a game plan until you get punched in the face' and it's true."

Despite her disappointment at losing her previous fight, Létourneau now has her sights set firmly ahead of her and her next fight at UFC Ottawa.

"I'm really excited about that, Ottawa is just two hours away from Montreal so to me it's pretty much like fighting in my hometown," Létourneau said excitedly. "Sometimes when I go away and fight it's a little bit of a stress because I don't know anybody but there, I should get a lot of encouragement from the crowd so I just can't wait to fight again in Canada.

Létourneau added: "My focus now is purely on taking what I do in the gym and making sure it's what I do in my fight. A lot of that is to do with the mental side of the game. Being able to maintain focus, staying calm and just executing what you want to do in there.

"I'm working on that but also every aspect of my game whether it be my jiu-jitsu, my wrestling or my striking. I'm just looking over everything in my game, watching my fights back and studying my opponent to try work out what they are going to do against me.

"I'm just trying to fight the perfect fight."

You can watch Valérie in action against Joanne Calderwood at UFC Fight Night Ottawa on Sunday, June 19th live on BT Sports at 3:30am.