Aisling Daly

Aisling Daly (/ˈæʃlɪŋ ˈdeɪli/ ASH-ling DAY-lee; born 24 December 1987) is a retired Irish female professional mixed martial artist who last competed in the UFC women's strawweight division. Daly had been a professional MMA competitor since 2007. Daly is well known for her participation in the reality TV series "The Ultimate Fighter: A Champion Will Be Crowned", season 20. The 12 episodes featured a single elimination tournament that was used to determine two finalists to compete for the first ever UFC woman's straw weight belt. Daly was eliminated in the quarterfinals, and as a result of her showing was offered and accepted a fight on the undercard of the championship fight, which she won. Daly has competed in several divisions, including strawweight and flyweight. Daly has trained throughout her career at Straight Blast Gym Ireland, under SBGi head coach John Kavanagh. She received her Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from SBG head coach Matt Thornton in October 2016, becoming the first Irish female to earn the prestige. On 30 January 2017 she officially retired from MMA due to an abnormality in a routine brain scan making it unlikely for her to be cleared to fight again.