Angela Magana on newfound Twitter infamy: 'I'm actually just being myself'

Angela Magana was known mostly for being a longtime women's MMA fighter and competitor on The Ultimate Fighter 20. Until about a month ago. That's when the seven-year veteran kind of discovered Twitter, in her own way.

"I was never big fan of social media," Magana told MMA Fighting. "I was too busy living life to talk about my life. Who gives a f---?"

The way Magana explains it, she was drawn into Twitter by haters who didn't much like her persona on TUF and took to their keyboards to express that opinion publicly.

Since then, Magana's Twitter account has been the most buzzed about in the UFC. From brutal honesty to lewd language to nearly nude pictures, Magana's feed has not been everyone's bag. But people are paying attention. She has gained more than 10,000 new followers in less than a month. And she'll go into her fight with Tecia Torres at The Ultimate Fighter 20 Finale on Friday in Las Vegas as one of the most well-known competitors from the show, even though she didn't win a single tournament bout.

Magana (11-6) said attention-seeking was not the aim. She was simply trying to defend herself against trolls and things have taken on a life of their own organically.

"My motivation wasn't to gain followers," Magana said. "It was just these f---ing scumbag losers on Twitter who want to abuse me. I'm not gonna sit back and let them abuse me.

"I might as well use it as my tool. I'm like addicted to this s--- now."

Magana, 31, has even spawned her own catchphrases, not unlike the pro-wrestling characters she grew up watching. She has taken to calling her Twitter followers "peasants" and herself "Your Majesty." The latter has stuck so much that she'll be using it as her official UFC nickname. Bruce Buffer will actually announce her as Angela "Your Majesty" Magana on Friday night at the Palms.

"It comes from me being so much better than those f---ing losers on there," Magana said. "I'm not like that in my every day life. I don't think I have peasants and stuff. But on Twitter? Hell yeah."

While Magana, 31, did not intend to have her follower count grow exponentially, it has been a nice side effect of her uncensored, no-filter style of tweeting. She firmly believes fighters should be themselves, though most of them are watered down and try too hard to be polite and politically correct. The ones like Conor McGregor who let it all hang out verbally are the ones who have the bigger chance to stardom, she said. Magana uses her TUF castmate Emily Kagan as an example of the opposite.

"Nobody is gonna f---ing remember Emily," Magana said. "I love Emily, but she has no charisma. She has no personality on TV. Even if she puts on a great fight, nobody remembers those people. The only people they're going to remember is people who talk."

Magana hasn't just been vocal. She's also taken to posting risqué pictures of herself on Twitter. In one, taken from behind, she's fully nude. Magana has taken criticism for the photos, but she said she isn't doing anything differently than her women's MMA peers.

"They all did it," Magana said. "I don't know why it's so crazy that I did it. Look at Felice [Herrig]. Look at Ronda [Rousey]. Look at Miesha [Tate]. Cris Cyborg said all you have to do is take sexy pictures in women's MMA. I took her advice. It worked."

There might be a method to Magana's social media madness. But mostly, she just doesn't to come off as phony. Maybe her tweets are a little over-the-top, but Magana herself is that way, too.

"I believe just being myself, not censoring myself and just being who I am definitely helps me," said Magana, who owns wins over current MMA champions Barb Honchak and Jessica Aguilar. "Ronda been talking her entire career. I'd rather not be the Jon Jones type who's going to be fake and say it's all about Jesus."

And the critics and haters and trolls? They're all liable to feel the Twitter wrath of "Your Majesty." They created this monster in the first place.

"All these people started abusing me on Twitter, people who didn't know anything about me, people who watched me on an edited TV show and became so emotionally invested that they had to message me and call me all kinds of nasty, hateful things," Magana said. "It comes from me being so much better than those f---ing losers on there."