Lauren Murphy on Narrow UFC 247 Victory: ‘There Was No Controversy’

Lauren Murphy has no time for boredom these days.

After she edged Andrea Lee by split decision at UFC 247, she wasted no time beginning the renovation of her new house with her husband.

“We just bought a house and we are remodeling it before we move in,” she explained. “We have to move by the end of the month, so we are kind of on a time crunch.”

The former Invicta FC bantamweight champion defeated Lee on the prelims of a UFC 247 card headlined by a light heavyweight title bout between Jon Jones and Dominick Reyes.

“It was fun, it wasn’t that much of a big a deal,” she said. “Actually, the walk to the Octagon was shorter than I was expecting. The nerves weren’t that bad.”

Murphy is now riding a two-bout winning streak. Prior to her latest Octagon appearance, she overcame Mara Romero Borella via third-round technical knockout at UFC on ESPN 5. “Lucky” is pretty sure that her performance has improved a lot after she started working with Dr. Matteo Capodaglio on her nutrition.

“I joined Caponutrition 2 years ago. I called Matteo after I had a really bad weight cut and a really bad fight,” she said. “In the last two fight camps, we worked really closely together. My performance is obviously improved. Anybody that watches the fight can see it. My last two fights have been my best fights in the UFC by far. I love pasta, for sure.”

In recollecting the moments of her latest fight, Murphy confesses that nothing “KGB” did in the Octagon really surprised her.

“I knew she was going to be super high energy, high pace, a lot of punches and kicks,” she said. “I knew she was going to take me down at some point. I don’t think anything she did really surprised me. I think there was pretty constant action all the time. She landed a really good body kick on me in the third round, which was really loud. I knocked her mouthpiece out a bunch of times. There wasn’t like a definitive moment in the fight, we were both just trying so hard to push the pace and leave a good impression on the judges.”

A close fight always leaves a sour taste in the loser’s mouth, but it seems like Andrea Lee didn’t take the split decision well at all.

“The fight is over now. I didn’t make the decision. I don’t know all the controversy is about,” she said. “It was a close fight, but the judges picked me as a winner. It happens all the time in this sport, it happens every weekend. I think what was different about this time is that the girl wearing the cowboy hat lost the decision in Texas. People make a big deal out of it, but the truth is this is not a big deal.”

In a recent interview with BJPenn.com, Lee revealed her intention to appeal that decision. Murphy, on the other hand, doesn’t believe her former opponent will have any success in that regard.

“Good luck with that,” Murphy said. “I don’t know what grounds she would appeal the decision on. The grounds she doesn’t like it? There is no reason that she can give the commission to appeal. Nothing illegal happened. There was no controversy, the referee didn’t make a bad call. We fought to a decision, the judges decided. That’s how fights go. That’s literally how fights work.”

Now, Murphy plans to take a break from the fighting for a bit, but she doesn’t rule out a return before this year’s end.

“I’m going to take a little vacation with my husband, and then we’ll see what happens. If the UFC calls, I’m going to answer, but if they won’t, then I won’t,” she said.