Loopy Godinez Leans on Gratitude Ahead of Souza Scrap at the APEX

Loopy Godinez steps back into the Octagon on Saturday against Ketlen Souza at UFC Fight Night: Allen vs. Duncan, closing out a longer-than-usual layoff with a pointed reminder that she's been here before — 15 times, in fact, since joining the roster in April 2021. The Mexican-Canadian strawweight is coming off a Round 2 rear-naked choke loss to #2-ranked Tatiana Suarez earlier this year in Miami, and she's not pretending otherwise.

Godinez owned the defeat without flinching, saying flatly that she made a mistake and that going through the rough patches is part of learning. She knows how to defend a choke, she argued, but some nights it just doesn't go your way. The plan now is the same as it's always been: back to the gym, fix the leaks, move on.

The Opponent Problem

Souza is exactly the kind of test you don't want on the back of a loss. She rides in on a two-fight win streak, most recently blasting Ariane Carnelossi with a first-round KO, and her 17-6 record (9 KO, 2 SUB) screams finisher. Unranked but clearly hunting a top-15 slot, she's younger, hungrier, and heavy-handed — a fighter with everything to gain and nothing to protect.

Godinez isn't rattled by the power. She described Souza as a dangerous puncher but insisted her camp has drilled specifically to neutralize and counter it. The role of grizzled veteran facing the up-and-comer is one she says she enjoys, and after a stretch of training without a fight on the calendar, she claims the extra reps have left her sharper, not rusty.

Gratitude as a Game Plan

The bigger theme running through Godinez's week is perspective. She pointed to her own coach, Jared Revel, as proof that talent and effort don't guarantee a UFC call — Revel won the BFL middleweight title and defended it twice, beat UFC veterans, and still never got the Octagon invite before pivoting to coaching. That context, Godinez said, keeps her from getting swallowed by any single result.

Her path to victory, by her own telling, is refreshingly boring: do in the cage exactly what she's been doing in the gym, nothing fancier. She singled out her recent sparring as some of her best work, enough to leave her whole team happy. The main card goes live at 8pm ET from the Meta APEX in Las Vegas on October 10, streaming on Paramount+ in the US, with prelims kicking off at 5pm ET.