Yair Rodriguez will always appreciate compliments on his fights, but it’s much harder for him to feel the same way after a difficult loss.
This is exactly how Max Holloway addressed their war from November. The 29-year-old Mexican-born featherweight battled the former champion for five rounds, earning “Fight of the Night” honors, yet he still lost by unanimous decision.
“I know a lot of people were happy because of the fight,” Rodriguez, who on Saturday faces Brian Ortega at UFC on ABC 3, explained on The MMA Hour. “It was a great fight but for me, it was a lot of experience, but I didn’t get the result I wanted. I’m not happy with my results, to be honest.
” I think I need to do a lot more work and work on my self a lot more. It was a great eye opener for me. [I’m] here, still learning, I’m moving forward.”
Holloway is a dominant competitor at 145 pound, despite previous defeats to Alexander Volkanovski (the reigning featherweight champion), But Rodriguez made him work extremely hard for 25 minutes to get the win. Rodriguez took in 250 hits from Holloway during the fight.
The $50,000 “Fight of the Night” bonus was a nice reward for Rodriguez. Rodriguez would prefer to have the win.
“It was an amazing fight against an amazing opponent, but I didn’t really celebrate that much,” Rodriguez said. I was content because it was an amazing fight and everyone was happy about it. But inside of me, I was like, ‘F***, I lost. 100 percentage .'”
I don’t feel happy.
Rodriguez had to leave after that fight, so he was able to schedule his appearance on ABC’s UFC.
” “There are some things you won’t heal,” Rodriguez stated. Rodriguez said, “You will have occasional pains but not anything serious.
” It’s contact sports, so you have to adapt to the fact that you are moving ahead in your sport. You’re learning, growing and getting older. Some things will never disappear. It was a few minor pains, but it took me a while to heal completely. It took me a couple of months in order for me to be better, but here we are.”
If there’s been one problem that’s plagued Rodriguez more than others, it’s been the amount of time he’s been forced to the sidelines. He’s had only six total fights over the past five-plus years. Injuries play a part in that, and his contract dispute with the UFC also caused delays.
The The Ultimate Fighter champion doesn’t see time as an obstacle to his career. Instead, he just does his best to take full advantage of the time he has available so he’ll be even better when he makes his return.
” I actually like it — I enjoy taking my time,” Rodriguez stated. It’s healing completely. I can understand how people might feel that if you don’t take the time to heal, then you will not come back. We do this for a living.
“Reactionally, we’ll be there and you won’t forget how to fight. You get more time to prepare for yourself. It’s nothing crazy taking some time off and coming back.”
