Valerie Loureda Shares Swimsuit Photo For UFC Celebwell
Professional wrestler Valerie Loureda encouraged fans to watch both UFC and WWE NXT Great American Bash 2023 via a social media update. Loureda, 25, shared a video of herself looking fit and beautiful in an aquamarine bikini with matching coverup, telling fans who her picks are for the fights. "I've been working hard to bring a different touch to WWE that they're never seen before," she explained in the video. How does she stay so fit? Read on to see 5 ways Loureda stays in shape and the photos that prove they work.
Loureda is proud and confident about her fighting skills. "I'm an amazing wrestler," she says. "Cuban wrestling is very different, and I was lucky enough to be taught wrestling by Yoel Romero and Alexis Villa and Gustavito (Balart), a lot of Olympic wrestlers, so they really taught me that Cuban wrestling, and I'm gonna take it into the cage. I just haven't been given a chance to show it because I'm playing my game, but the moment I get the opportunity to show it, people are gonna be shocked by my wrestling skills."
Loureda grew up doing taekwondo, which set the tone for her future career as a fighter. "I never in my life thought for one second this is eventually what I would do," she says. "I always had the vision of the Olympic dream [in taekwondo] in my mind, but at some point… that changed, and I saw MMA on TV. I saw the way it was blowing up, and people were falling in love with it. I said, 'Wow, I can do that. I could fight like that. I could beat those girls, and I could change the world one day with that platform and all their viewers.' So I was very excited about MMA, and that's when it was born for me."
Loureda says switching from MMA to wrestling was no joke. "It's extremely tough. For me, it's actually harder than MMA," she says. "My first bump, I just knew I could do it. I had this feeling in my gut and my first bump, hitting the ropes, I just fell in love with it and I knew I could do it. It's tough, it's a hard transition, it's different than what I'm used to, but if you can rewire your brain and change your mentality and realize what this is and how to be the best at it, you can be successful. I was with coach (Norman) Smiley the whole time and he was amazing and taught me so much. He stayed in an open ring after for like two hours and we worked and he taught me stuff and taught me different things that would work with my style."
Loureda is careful to build muscle rather than lose weight as a result of MMA/wrestling training. "I might not be sparring as much, but I'm doing physical training (and) conditioning," she says. "I lost a lot of weight after 'Exatlon,' and in these times, I've used time to concentrate on what I want to do with my life. While many are eating and gaining weight at home, I've been working to be on weight and be ready for this fight. So I haven't had many partners for this training camp, but I'm very confident in my level and the years of training in martial arts."
Loureda has neither time nor patience for those who criticize female athletes for bikini pictures. "If women do it, it's being seen as doing it for social media and doing it to be an object for men and marketing. And that's not the case," she says. "It's not for any man, it's for us as women showing we can be badass and beautiful and strong, and we could still be animals in the cage and know how to defend ourselves."
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