Laura Sanko Forced to Sleep in Towel After Flight Cancellation Strands UFC Analyst at Airport

Airports can test patience, but for Laura Sanko, it turned into a night she won’t forget. The UFC analyst boarded a plane expecting a simple “out and back” trip: no luggage, no toothbrush, just a quick turnaround. But what happened wasn’t just bad luck; it was a slow unraveling. First came the delays. Then the tarmac wait.

Finally, the dreaded announcement: flight canceled. And with no bags, no backup clothes, and no clue what came next, Sanko and her friend Summer found themselves turning frustration into humor!

On her Instagram stories, Sanko summed it up with a facepalm emoji and wrote, “Was supposed to be an out and back trip so we have NOTHING with us.” She even ticked off the ordeal like a checklist: one-hour delay, another hour stuck on the tarmac, cancellation while still sitting on the plane, and even then, no permission to exit.

Eventually, the passengers were let off. But freedom didn’t bring comfort. In a follow-up video on her story, Laura Sanko filmed her friend lying on what appears to be an empty restaurant in the terminal and stated, “We’ve got a lot of quality time today. Might be getting a lot more. It’s 1 a.m. We sat on the tarmac for three hours and then they just had us get off the plane and now we don’t know what’s happening. But yeah, might just be, I don’t know, maybe we’ll sleep in this abandoned restaurant.”

The mood shifted from annoyance to gallows humor as she and Summer debated their options. Sanko asked, “So tell me what the plan is?” Summer painted a bleak picture: wait for three hours and pray the issues got fixed, or find a hotel nearby.

Hotels meant one problem, though: no supplies. “But we don’t have any clothes. No toothbrushes,” the UFC analyst said. Summer reminded her they had at least one backup: “Denim. We have denim. We’re in our denim.” Sanko laughed and added, “We have a lot of denim!”

Then came the punchline. With no pajamas, Laura Sanko declared, “You can sleep in that. I’ll just sleep in a towel.” It was a line equal parts frustration and comedy, the kind of moment only travel chaos can create.

Oddly enough, Laura Sanko isn’t the only one from the fight world to clash with air travel this year. Earlier in January, Khabib Nurmagomedov was removed from a plane after a dispute with a flight attendant over seating!

Thankfully, Laura Sanko’s night didn’t escalate into a confrontation, but the theme is familiar. Fighters and analysts live on planes. Travel mishaps aren’t rare; they’re part of the grind. But when they happen to high-profile figures, the spotlight shines a little brighter.

In fact, Sanko was once chasing her own dreams as a fighter as well, but she chose to follow a path towards broadcasting instead of the cage. And she finally opened up about why she decided to hang up the gloves and pick up the microphone instead for one particular reason!

Laura Sanko pulls back the curtain on her decision to walk away from a career as a professional fighter

When you hear Laura Sanko’s voice on UFC broadcasts, it’s easy to forget that she once stood inside the cage herself. Before the headset and the bright lights, she was a fighter with a dream, racking up six amateur wins and a professional debut in Invicta FC back in 2013. For many, the decision to walk away still raises questions. Why stop there? Why not chase more?

In a conversation with Xtreme Couture head coach, Eric Nicksick, Sanko revealed the factors that led her to step away as she stated, “It’s always a problem to a degree”, pointing to a lack of opponents in her weight class and continued, “But by that point for, you know, once I was fighting for Invicta, like, they were gonna do all the work, and they had a handful of good atomweights. Really that was the top of the mountain. If you’re an atomweight, this is it.”

Her words paint a clear picture. Sanko wasn’t chasing fame or fortune as she further confessed, “It’s not like I thought I was gonna be some superstar. I knew what it was, but I loved it. It was never about making money or being known because that wasn’t even a possibility back then when I was fighting.”

Twelve years on, Sanko has built a reputation as one of the sharpest voices in the sport. The fighter once known as ‘Fancy’ may have only logged a single pro bout, but her perspective as someone who’s both stepped into the cage and now sits behind the desk makes her unique. Whether it’s laughing her way through an airport nightmare or reflecting on a career that never quite took off, she proves resilience is her strongest weapon. The towel in the terminal may fade into a funny story, but her voice in the Octagon? That’s here to stay!