Sometimes it feels like the UFC Octagon girls are more popular than the fighters themselves. That would explain why when Las Vegas-resident Natasha Wicks won the recent Maxim Magazine Octagon Girl search at UFC 100 in July, it was treated like big news around the MMA blogosphere.

FanHouse recently spoke to Wicks about making her debut at UFC 101 earlier this month in Philadelphia and her other job as a golf caddy. Yes, a golf caddy.

Ariel Helwani: What was the highlight of your UFC debut earlier this month in Philadelphia?
Natasha Wicks: Definitely, the highlight was the first time I got to walk around. I instantly received text messages and calls from everybody, ‘Oh my gosh!’ Like people that hadn’t known already and people that knew; everyone was really excited. But for me, it was such an honor; I was so excited. It definitely became real at that moment. The whole trip was just the highlight. The whole trip was exciting. I enjoyed every minute of it (laughs).

So some long lost friends actually learned that you are a UFC Octagon girl for the first time while watching the show?
Yeah. Like old college friends, or just people that you still have each other’s numbers, you still kind of call and be like, ‘Hey, how’s it going?,’ but you just don’t talk anymore. But yeah, definitely.

Philly crowds are always interesting. In fact, there was a pretty intense fight in the crowd during the show. Did you hear any interesting things from the people while you were working?
No. I mean, it was funny to hear people just scream my name. That was just like, Wow, this is crazy. People instantly — even us going to dinner afterwards — there were just a line of people that wanted to take pictures with us, wanted us to sign their magazines and stuff. But I didn’t really hear anything other than screams.

Before you got involved in with the UFC, were you aware of how popular the Octagon girls are?
Not really. The moment that I won, I did my research. Kind of went online and looked it over, and that kind of gave me an idea. I was just like, Wow. And also the fact that the day after I won, someone had created a fan site, and it was just definitely huge. I don’t know, it doesn’t feel any different for me mentally. I’m not like, Oh, do you know who I am? You know, I don’t think it’ll ever get to my head like that.

Well, I’ll call you in a month or so, and we’ll see if that changes.
(Laughs) I don’t think so. I’m definitely always very true to myself. So I don’t think I’m better than anybody. Even the fact that I got picked, I wasn’t like, Yeah, I knew I’d win. It really wasn’t like that at all.
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