FIVE MILLION DOLLARS. That is the price of Ais ‘The Bash’ Daly’s silence. Or rather, that is how much the UFC will try to sue her for if she reveals details of season 20 of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) before it airs on television.
Dubliner Daly’s first fight on the reality series – of which the prize is a UFC contract – aired this week and she admits that it is tough not to divulge any secrets ahead of air time.
“It was hard not saying anything because people kept asking me,” Daly says.
“In the contract it says that if I say anything they will sue me for $5 million. I don’t know where they would get it from though. I barely have a penny.”
26 year-old Daly is well known on the Irish MMA circuit and has fought professionally in Europe and America since 2007. She went for TUF try-outs last April and made the cut after an impressive performance. The downside to making the show was missing out on the UFC’s visit to the Point last July, which coincidentally happened the same week her first TUF fight was filmed.
“It was the biggest day in the history of Irish MMA and by missing out on it I did feel a little excluded,” Daly says.
“But getting a shout-out from my friend Paddy Holohan was huge because it was just before my fight and gave me a real boost.”
Daly won her opening fight in the reality show against Angela Magana by TKO in the third round of what was a close and somewhat controversial fight. The referee ordered the fighters to stand-up twice in the opening round when Magana had Daly on her back. Daly agrees that the decision was contentious but overall, she just wanted to beat a girl she didn’t see eye-to-eye with.
“My opponent has been giving out on Twitter saying the ref called a bad stand-up and it was a bad stand-up but what the ref does has nothing to do with me,” Daly said.
“My opponent was particularly mean and nasty. I think if she went to see a psychologist she would be diagnosed as a psychopath. That is how bad she was.”
Daly was stricken with dehydration in the build-up to the fight but insisted that it had nothing to do with trying to get out of the bout. Rather, she says, her illness was down to an affliction that anyone in this country can understand – Irish people + lots of sun = disaster.
“I’m as pasty an Irish person as they come and I can’t really handle the heat well,” Daly says.
“In Vegas, they had air conditioners in the gym but with so many lights for television cameras it was like training in a sauna. I never really adjusted to the heat; I had to drink 8-10 litres of water a day just to function.”
Another feature of the latest TUF episode was Daly opening up about her anxiety and depression issues. It was something she was reluctant to talk about on the show, because she was worried it would come across as one of those X Factor sob stories but after some badgering from the producers she was candid about her mental health issues, how she deals with them and how if impacts her life.
“It was difficult to talk about that openly on television but they kept probing me and eventually they got the full story,” Daly says.
“I tried to talk about it in a positive way and show that you can overcome your issues and be happy because I didn’t want them to turn it into a sob story. I think they did do that.
“You have good days and bad days. It is like having an injury really. I don’t want there to be a stigma around mental health.
“You are never really free of it; it’s like a ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ kind of thing’.”
While Daly couldn’t say how far she goes in the competition (remember the $5m?) she is guaranteed a UFC fight in Las Vegas in December because all of the participants of the season compete on the card. After that, nothing is certain for Ais ‘The Bash’ Daly.
Nothing except that she will keep her distinctive nickname.
“I got it back in the days when I was a kid and used to do karate,” Daly said.
“I was always really scrappy and would fight all the boys and people would say, ‘ there’s Ais off bashing all the boys again.’ That turned into Ais ‘The Bash’ and it has just sort of stuck ever since.”
