Invicta strawweight Angela Hill has wowed fans with back-to-back TKO victories, over Alida Gray and Stephanie Eggink, in her first two appearances with Invicta Fighting Championships. Those wins have propelled the popular former Ultimate Fighter contestant into her first MMA title fight – versus reigning Invicta strawweight champion Livia Renata Souza.
Hill, who is 4-2, told Bloody Elbow that she has had her eye on Souza since signing with Invicta in late 2015. And it’s fair to say that Hill has been somewhat impressed with what she’s seen from the undefeated champion.
“I think that she’s scrappy and she’s durable,” said Hill, who believes Souza was losing her previous fight, against DeAnna Bennett, before pulling of a first-round TKO victory at Invicta FC 15 in January.
“She’s dangerous off of her back,” added Hill. “She knows how to get some slick trip or weird guard jump attack or something like that.”
Souza, a BJJ black belt under Vinicius Maximo, has won all but two of her nine fights via submission. In preparation for the fight, Hill has worked hard on submission defense, but according to her, this is nothing new.
“I’ve always been drilling that,” said Hill. “Even before my losses where I got submitted, it’s always been a part of my game, it’s always been a huge part, just because most girls my size are coming in with a grappling background. So it’s always gonna be something that people try and go to whenever they fight me.”
Hill, who trains at Alliance MMA in San Diego, also revealed that a former Ultimate Fighter housemate has been especially helpful in preparing her for Livinha’s ground assault.
“I’ve had Jessica Penne here for the last two or three camps, so it’s really benefitted me a lot, just to be able to train with someone who is so good at jiu jitsu, but also good at MMA jiu jitsu, which is a lot different from just grappling with someone who is good at no gi or who’s a good gi grappler, but doesn’t necessarily think about getting punched in the face.”
If the fight with Souza remains standing, where Hill is known for being more potent, ‘Overkill’ is optimistic about ending the fight in a similar fashion to her last two contests.
“The possibility of a knockout is out there,” said Hill. “Her striking, she’s aggressive, but I don’t think that necessarily she’s so slick, or at least not as slick as she is on the ground.”
“I was surprised that her last fight ended with, what was it, a kick to the ribs? Yeah, I was pretty surprised about that, but I think I could take a few, I definitely took a few in my last fight and I was like, meh,” said Hill, before letting out a big laugh.
After her victory over Bennett, Souza stated (per MMAFighting) that she didn’t think any fighter in Invicta was on her level and that she wanted to move to the UFC because of this.
Hill, who fought three times in the UFC, doesn’t like Souza’s chances in the world’s biggest fight promotion. When comparing Souza to her fellow Brazilian, Claudia Gadelha, Hill claimed that Souza would get “trashed” by the UFC’s current number-one-contender.
Additionally, Hill doubts Souza’s personality and brand will convince the UFC to give the Brazilian a promotional push. “She’s not gonna win the popularity contest [in the UFC],” stated Hill. “She’s not winning it in Invicta!”
“Being in the UFC is definitely gonna boost your status, but at the same time, if you don’t have the look that they want, they’re not gonna push you like crazy, so yeah, I dunno, be careful what you wish for.”
Hill has gone on record with her disappointment at the match-making and eventual release she experienced at the UFC. When comparing her time with the ZUFFA-run operation to her current employers, Hill says she has a lot to be grateful for.
“I’ve been really liking the way Invicta’s run,” said Hill. “It’s run like a big show, only with a small show feel, when it comes to the interaction with the owners and the people in charge.”
“I feel in Invicta, you definitely feel less disposable, more like, if you have a bad night, they’re not gonna throw you under the bus, if you win a funky decision, they’re not gonna throw you under the bus, you know, they seem to value their fighters a bit more than the UFC.”
Despite loving life in Invicta, Hill does still think about what it would be like to re-sign with the UFC, even if this is something she does not expect to happen in the near future.
“If I do get back to the UFC, I gotta be ready to fight the top five,” said Hill.
“And whether that means just grappling more, or just knocking everybody out that I meet in Invicta, I don’t really know when I’m gonna feel that that’s the case, but I definitely feel that at this point I can fight the top 10, or the top 15 through 5, and do really well against them.
“Right now, I’m just happy getting more experience. Livia’s in front of me right now, we’ll see how I do against her.”
With Invicta, Hill feels she has the perfect platform to not only develop as a fighter, but also to develop a reputation and brand that larger promotions might covet further down the road.
“You know, Cyborg finally got put in the UFC recently, and it’s all because of her hype during Strikforce and Invicta,” said Hill. “So if they’re not calling, I’m building my hype train and every fight I’m just trying to build that hype train, and have people be like, ‘What about Angela Hill versus the champ?’, and get the buzz going and everyone wanting to see that, and when that finally happens, I’ll feel like I have a huge bargaining chip to get back in, if I want to.
“But right now I’m just happy with Invicta, they’ve been really fair and just been treating me really well, treating all their fighters really well, so I’m gonna stick it out with them for now and see how it goes.”
Something Hill does not miss about the UFC is the lack of opportunities, she believes exists, for fighters to express themselves, creatively.
“It’s funny, I came in right before the whole Reebok deal happened, so I had one fight where I got to wear the MMA outfit with all the sponsors, the banners, everything, and you know, that was pretty cool, I feel like I could have done a lot with that, and then the next fight it was just Reebok fight kit, so yeah, it definitely takes a lot of the personality out of it, and it kind of leaves the UFC to build the person’s persona outside of the cage.
“Invicta is more like a place where you can build your personality and build your brand, and then if the UFC scoops you up, you already have that brand that you built for years in another organization that was more lenient.”
Hill is proud of what she has been able to accomplish thus far in marketing herself to MMA fans, using both elaborate weigh-in outfits and a relentless twitter profile to attract new supporters.
When asked what her newest weigh-in outfit would be (on the heels of an ode to Street Fighter), Hill was tight lipped, saying only that her outfit was inspired by something which is both a movie and a video game.
On twitter, Hill enjoys a reputation as one of the best accounts to follow in the MMA community. When asked what other notable twitter users were on a par with her, Hill answered with authority: “Nobody.”
“I’m pretty much up there with myself,” joked Hill. Eventually she did name two other accounts she felt were worth a follow.
“Elias Theodorou, he’s pretty funny, even though he likes to plagiarize my tweets! Derrick Lewis is really funny too, he posts a lot of funny stuff on his twitter.”
One person who seems to be not a fan of Hill’s twitter game is UFC veteran, and ATT mainstay, Din Thomas, who recently got into it with Hill while she was live-tweeting UFC on Fox 19, which featured a pivotal tilt between Hill’s former foes Tecia Torres and Rose Namajunas.
“I made a joke about Tecia’s corner saying to be more boring,” recalled Hill. “[Thomas] got really offended, I think because he was in her corner. So he tried to start some sh*t on twitter, and a lot of times I feel like the more you respond to someone like that, the deeper you get pulled in and the more stupid you look.”
“The reality is, I fought Tecia and it was boring,” continued Hill. “Not because of my doing, if anything because I didn’t know to get out of the positions that we were in, but I still think that it was a really boring fight, so I feel like I have the right to say that she’s boring. So I do it as much as possible and as often as possible,” laughed Hill.
“I think he was just being protective of his fighter, he got really upset, maybe he taught her to fight that way, he taught her to fight like a p***y, and he wanted to try and make me look stupid, by posting a picture of an exciting fighter beating me, so yeah, I thought it was a stupid thing to do.”
Hill is expecting her fight with Souza this weekend to be anything but boring.
“The title fight is gonna be really exciting, because this title is the most important thing to the girl that I’m fighting, and I’m gonna take it away from her, and it’s gonna be a fight to the death,” said Hill, as she tried - and failed - to temper her signature chuckle.
“She’s not gonna want to lose and I’m not gonna want to lose. I’m gonna beat the hell out of her,” finished Hill, in a more serious tone.
You can watch Livia Renata Souza defend her Invicta strawweight title to Angela Hill on May 7th, at Invicta FC 17, live on UFC Fight Pass.
You can follow Angela Hill on twitter @AngieOverkill