Delphine Benouaich might not have realized it, but her path to the UFC might have been laid out from childhood.
The Ultimate Fighter 34 contestant grew up with three brothers, and while she was always willing to scrap with them, the thought of pursuing an actual career in fighting was remote when she was growing up in the commune of Évry, France, a suburb of Paris. As Benouaich tells it, her area was mostly known for producing rappers and the occasional footballer.
Now, spending time training in Évry and London, Benouaich has been able to find more suitable female sparring partners, but she still fondly remembers her familial tussles.
“We were always fighting,†Benouaich told MMA Fighting. “That's the joke, I said, yeah, I began MMA super late but in fact I began when I was born because I was always fighting with them. It was not proper MMA, but yeah, I fought a lot with them.â€
Benouaich, 31, competed as an amateur from 2021-2023, making appearances for notable organizations such as the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation and Cage Warriors Academy. Prior to transitioning into MMA, she was primarily a grappler – ironic, considering she was labeled as a striker heading into her TUF 34 quarterfinal win over Mackenzie Stiller – with the mixing of the martial arts not occurring until her work as a physical education teacher brought her to a boxing gym.
“When I was a teenager, I wanted to try, but my parents were like – as I was fighting a lot at school – they were like, ‘No, be girly. Don't do that,'†Benouaich said. “So when I was 20, I began grappling because a friend of mine wanted to try, so I went with her. I did four years of grappling. I competed, I was on the French team.
“At the same time I was a P.E. teacher, I had to move in Évry for work, so in Évry there was an excellent boxing gym. MMA was quite good, but grappling not that much, it was mainly heavy people, not very technical, so I stopped grappling at this moment and began MMA and boxing.â€
As enthusiastic as she was to jump right into the pro ranks, Benouaich's coach advised her to go the amateur route first, a decision that Benouaich is now grateful for. Her amateur run wasn't flawless, but she's grateful for the highs and lows she experienced before making her pro debut in 2024.
“Before turning pro, boxers can have, like, 80 fights, 90 fights, so it was important for [my coach] to just let me take a lot of experience,†Benouaich said. “Once, I did a fight and I got rocked and I still fought, I still tried to win, and he was like, ‘OK, now we know that you answer like that when you're rocked. It's very interesting to discover it when you're an amateur, because in professional, if you don't react like that, it can cost you the fight and any loss can make your career super difficult after.'
“He really wanted me to fight all kinds of opponents who are taking all the fights, hard opponents, before turning pro, because he was like, ‘If you go pro and you still have a lot of things to improve, you can just miss a step and put your career in a very bad spot.' My goal was to go in the UFC when I was amateur, so I really wanted to have a clean pro career and at the same time fight hard opponents, not fight bums and get into the UFC and get cooked by the good girls.â€
Benouaich brought a 7-2 pro record into TUF 34, most recently scoring a first-round submission over Lindsey Payne at an Ares FC event this past December. She defeated Stiller to advance to the semifinals of the season's strawweight tournament and is now two wins away from securing a UFC contract.
On the show, Benouaich admits she didn't seek out the camera, but that doesn't mean she wasn't occasionally drawn into the spotlight. A recent episode saw Benouaich learning the finer points of a few English phrases and she revealed that she had a favorite she would use frequently in the house.
“The one I was spamming was ‘Say less,'†Benouaich said. “I think it's cool. Like, in French we say, ‘DA' (direction artistique) it means ‘artistic direction,' and we will say, for example, like it's aligned to your character, that's in your artistic direction. ‘Say less' is kind of my artistic direction.
“‘What's good, twin?' ‘Are you hanging in there?' That type of thing is cool.â€
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