Performances of the Night:
Dan Ige
Davey Grant
Matthew Semelsberger
Ryan Spann
Leon Edwardsvs. Belal Muhammadwas ruled a no decision at 0:18 of round 2
Ryan Spann defeated Misha Cirkunovvia TKO at 1:11 of round 1
Ryan Spann:
I wanted to be in the moment, be present. I wanted to be able to see everything, so I wanted to stay relaxed. Today was about laughing, joking and being relaxed. I was a little bit nervous, wondering if it’s going to go like I think it’s going to go and how it should go, which is me touching him… Basically, how it went. I knew when he went down we didn’t necessarily want to play the jiu-jitsu game. I wasn’t scared of it like I’ve fought bigger grapplers so to speak. It’s not that I was scared of it, I just wanted to be patient and I wanted to let it come to me.
I take positives and negatives from everything. Even the people that are speaking positive on me, everything… I appreciate it. I remember it all. When he fell the first time, I could just think about how Johnny [Walker] dropped under me and I went under him. Somebody for the UFC was like “Why did you follow him down?” and I was like “I don’t know what I was thinking”. I just remember all of that. I have a unique ability to go back and replay my own moments in my life and different situations the way I remember it the next time it comes around.
That’s up to them. We are ready. I’ve been scheduled for five rounds before… I don’t want to do five rounds. I just want to go out there, touch somebody and get my hand raised and walk out like I told you in Brazil. That’s what we are looking for. If it’s a main event, it’s a main event. If not, it’s not. We are going to keep doing what we are doing no matter where we are.
I like to think a performance like this puts me in that position, but like I’ve said before, we are just kind of playing the game. I’m a realist so to speak, I knew I wasn’t in a position before to call somebody out. When we scheduled this fight, he was No. 10. I just beat that guy. I just stopped that guy. Now, of course, let’s talk some numbers. I want single digits. I want to catch up with Uriah [Hall] and a bunch of other people at my gym. I don’t want to be the only one with a double digit ranking. Give me a single digit.
I don’t know about more so proving to myself, but proving to my guys in Memphis with Law School MMA, my guys in Dallas at Fortis MMA. We are all coming back, I talk to my guys and I let a lot of them know this is what is going on in my life. Y’all have seen me fall and you see me get back up. You can do the same thing and this is what I’m trying to prove. I want to show these guys that they can bounce back and they can show up too. I want these guys to be the best. Tonight I walked out to ‘Middle Child’ and the significance behind that song is the fact that there is three light heavyweights in Fortis right now: Kennedy Nzechukwu, myself and Alonzo Menifield. Kennedy just fought last week, I just fought this week. Shout out to Kennedy! I had to beat his time. I couldn’t let him go out there and knock somebody out faster than I could, so now Zo, it’s on you. Zo is in the week after the next and I’m the middle one. That’s why I walked out to ‘Middle Child’, because I have these guys on my back.
Dan Ige defeated Gavin Tuckervia KO at 0:22 of round 1
Dan Ige:
I just feel ecstatic. I’m happy that I came out with the win, I’m happy that I’m healthy. I’m just grateful and I’m excited to go home, be with my wife, spend time with her and get ready for this new baby boy.
I just said 50k. It’s kind of undeniable. I was expecting a war, Gavin is a tough kid. I’m pretty sure the line on this fight was pretty even and could’ve just as easily been me there on the canvas, but we trained hard, I saw everything in there and landed the first shot. The rest is history.
It was just repetitions. Showing up every single day in the gym and having the goal to improve on something. Whether that was improving my technique on my striking, my boxing, my jab… Whether it was working on little details in my wrestling, my grappling, my get ups or my cage control. It was just focusing on the small, finer details, winning the small battles in practice. If you look back at some of the fights that I lost in the past, it wasn’t that I got blown out of the water. It was just little things like I gave up rounds, so we stopped giving up rounds, stopped giving up rounds in practice, stopped playing around on my back where I’m losing. Just little things like that. I would have loved to have shown off all that tonight, but, like I said, I can’t argue with a clean KO.
I just want to keep the ball rolling. Obviously I have a kid on the way, but that doesn’t take away from my game, that’s only going to improve me as a fighter. It’s going to improve me as a human being and I’m just going to keep striving towards the gold. That’s the overall goal. I got into this sport to be a champion; I fell short my first run, but here we are, I’m starting my second run, so let’s do it.
It’s kind of scary. It just means I have to go back to the gym and work harder. A wise man once told me someone gets a clean first round KO like that, their next fight they look like garbage because they just think they can knock everyone out. For me, that tells me I have to go back and work even harder because what got me that KO was hard work, was repetition, was showing up every single day when I didn’t want to show up, was just hard work in the gym and I have to continue doing that. That’s the recipe to success. I really believe in that and I will continue to do so.
It’s nice that I’m fighting here in Vegas. This is my home. I get to go back, shower, drive ten minutes and eat some pizza, hang out with my wife, my mom, my friends. I’m just happy. I’m happy to be home and I’m happy to be in good health.
Davey Grant defeated Jonathan Martinezvia KO at 3:03 of round 2
Matheus Nicolau defeated Manel Kapevia split decision
Matheus Nicolau:
I think I did enough to win the fight. The first round was mine, the second was his for sure, but in the third round, I think I got him with the better punches, the cleaner punches. Even if he had a more aggressive pace, I got him with the clean punches. I think I had done enough to win the fight.
The journey to be here was rough. I’ve been going through a lot. I went through a lot in those couple of years that I was out of the UFC. Especially in this training camp, I went through a lot. I was about to fight Tagir Ulanbekov, he is a completely different fighter, with all different characteristics. The opponent just changed like two weeks ago, so we had to change all the strategy for this fight. Of course I wanted to win by knockout or submission, but it’s good to have a tough fight like that. I think I proved to everybody and even to myself how much of a warrior I am, how much I want this, how much I work hard. I put everything inside the octagon and I think I did enough to get the victory.
I think I fit in at the top. Before I left the UFC, I was in the top 15. In my first flyweight fight, I fought with [John] Moraga, back in the day he was No. 6, he had already fought for the title. I always had tough challenges here and I always got good victories. I hope with this win I will be back on the rankings, on the Top 15, and I want my next opponent to be a ranked guy, because my focus is pretty clear here: I want to climb the mountain all the way to the top and get the shot.
COMMENTS