Casey O’Neal mentioned she watched rabbit-like determine skating movies late at night time and mentioned Olympic champion Alysa Liu’s run impressed her to return to the UFC after a year-and-a-half hiatus. Within the backstage tunnel earlier than her comeback match, she stored repeating one phrase to herself: “Maximize your enjoyment.”
Casey O’Neal returns to UFC
Casey O’Neal tore his ACL in early 2022 and was sidelined for an prolonged time frame, lacking his scheduled battle towards Jessica Eye at UFC 276. The Scottish-born flyweight, who is predicated in Las Vegas, began her UFC profession at 4-0, together with a cut up resolution win over Roxanne Modafferi at UFC 271, earlier than accidents halted her progress. After one other setback and knee surgical procedure, she underwent a full yr of rehabilitation and was out of motion for the whole thing of 2025, with a return scheduled for early 2026 towards Gabriela Fernandez.
O’Neal made her return on March 28, 2026, at a UFC occasion in Seattle towards Gabriela Fernandez, marking her first look since August 2024. She fought with depth, incomes a first-round knockout and immediately getting again into the flyweight dialog, marking a big emotional milestone after repeated harm points. In her post-fight feedback, she defined that whereas heading to the cage, she was targeted on one instruction inside herself, moderately than worry or place. The concept was to take pleasure in myself and profit from this second.
fun-maxxing with Alisa Liu
American determine skater Alisa Liu had already accomplished her full aggressive season. She retired early on the age of 16 after the 2022 Winter Olympics, then returned to win gold medals within the girls’s singles and workforce occasions on the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Her return and relaxed public demeanor sparked a brand new dialogue of competing for pleasure moderately than stress, with creators and analysts utilizing her for instance of “maximizing enjoyment” and pursuing efficiency by play moderately than battle.
Liu’s Olympic success and framing her skating as a efficiency pushed by enjoyable resonated with athletes in different sports activities, together with O’Neal, who understood the time period throughout her personal restoration. Alisa Liu made it clear that her Milan-Cortina gold medal was the results of skating for pleasure moderately than chasing outcomes, and that even with out a medal, she would have been at peace contemplating what her comeback meant.
As a breakdown of her mindset, she was quoted as saying, “Successful and shedding do not have an effect on me anymore… Medals do not fulfill me. I skate as a result of I really like skating.” She added, “So long as I am there, I am pleased with regardless of the end result is. I am there. I’ve nothing to lose.”
In preparation for Seattle, O’Neal adopted Liu’s lead and commenced reframing his return. After months of rehabilitation and doubts, he started to prioritize experiencing the stroll, the group, and the interplay contained in the cage moderately than specializing in outcomes. She explains that she repeats “maximize enjoyment” to herself within the tunnel as a solution to remove worry and expectations, and credit the Liu-inspired mantra with serving to her battle for freedom on her first night time again.
For O’Neal, the connection is easy. A determine skater who returns for the love of the game permits the UFC flyweight division to do the identical, turning an extended harm break right into a story of a voluntary return to the game.
