Fabio Maldonado reflects on rough UFC loss
Days after stepping up in weight class on short notice to fight top-10 heavyweight, Fabio Maldonado is crushed. The brave Brazilian lost in under a minute by TKO after getting caught with big punches from his larger opponent and told Guilherme Cruz in a recent interview that things could not have gone any worse.
"That was the worst result possible," Maldonado said.
"I lost in the worst way possible. Horrible. Horrible performance...I have no excuses. If I got tired after four or five rounds, I could blame the fact that I only trained two weeks for this fight, but that was not the case. It couldn’t have been worse."
Even so, Maldonado said that he doesn't regret taking the dangerous fight. He does, however, regret not fighting smarter. "I don’t regret taking the fight. I regret fighting the way I fought," he said.
"I could have done better, fighting smarter. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wanted to show that I was calm and he caught me...I should have listened to my corners better.
"They said ‘[Miocic] traded punches with Roy Nelson, he will trade punches with you,’ but I don’t know what I was thinking. I have no excuses. Miocic landed one right hand that caught me, and it was really hard. I wanted to catch him in the beginning of the fight, but I should have fought more patiently."
Heading into the fight, Maldonado was riding a two-fight win streak. Now, he's back to the drawing board.
"I have to think about what I’m going to do now," he said.
"I want to train in the United States now. My boxing is outdated if you compare it to boxers. I will probably go to Colorado or Miami to work on my boxing and wrestling. Maybe I’ll train boxing in one gym and wrestling in other place. I’m still thinking about it."
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