UFC Nashville: How becoming a father changed Rob Font's perspective on fighting
There's no other way to describe Rob Font's UFC career other than as a success. Competing at bantamweight, one of the promotion's deepest weight classes, Font has compiled a 10-5 UFC record as part of his overall 20-6 MMA record heading into his bout against Cory Sandhagen on Saturday at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, in the main event of UFC Nashville.
He's beaten the likes of former UFC champion Cody Garbrandt; Sergio Pettis, now a Bellator champion; and Adrian Yanez, whom he knocked out in April at UFC 287 in Miami, Florida, to end a two-fight losing streak.
He's clearly among the best in his class.
That's where the problem lies: He's not that interested in being among the best. He wants to be the best, and he realized along with his team at the New England Cartel that things had to change.
So after a two-fight losing streak to Jose Aldo and Marlon "Chito" Vera, Font sat out for a year. It was a tactic that worked for teammate Calvin Kattar, one of the world's finest featherweights, and so Font and Co. decided it was worth another try.
It allowed his injuries to heal. It enabled his mind to clear. And most of all, it rekindled his passion for training and fighting.
That was evident on April 8 at UFC 287 when he stopped Yanez in less than three minutes.
"When you step away from it for a while, you kind of start to see things differently," Font told Yahoo Sports. "You start feeling differently about the game. I started to find that love again and I couldn't wait to get back in there. When they called me about [fighting] Adrian Yanez, it was at the perfect time and I was like, 'Hell yeah, let's do it.'"
While he was on his self-imposed sabbatical, his fiancé, Kathy, was pregnant and gave birth to the couple's daughter, Emerald Monroe Font. Becoming a father had a profound impact on him.
Before, his life was all about fighting, but Emerald's birth changed things for him.
"I thought fighting was cool, but being a dad is even cooler, man," Font said. "It's like a main event for me every morning when I get to wake her up and see her and hang out with her. Things are crazy sometimes with social media and all that, but being with her, I don't care about anything else. I don't care about social media or Netflix or whatever's on. Just being with her and spending time with her, man, you talk about special. Wow, it's the best. That time I have with her is so meaningful to me."
And it's provided him plenty of motivation to take his game to the next level. He has something to fight for beyond his own personal desires.
After the Yanez victory, he was offered a spot on the UFC 292 card opposite Song Yadong in Boston. That would have been a home fight for him and the stuff of dreams with the crowd at The Garden roaring its approval.
Yadong was injured, though, and had to pull out, so Font accepted the UFC's offer to meet Sandhagen in Nashville. The upside for him is obvious. Font is seventh at bantamweight and Yadong is eight. Sandhagen, though, is fourth and a win over No. 4 will carry much more significance.
Just like Sandhagen, who was looking for a new opponent after his original opponent, Umar Nurmagomedov had to pull out, Font never hesitated in accepting the offer. He said he never trains specifically for someone else anyway and works on himself and improving his techniques in camp.
"We're both seasoned enough to kind of, what I'd say is, switch on a dime," Font said. "And look, the way I train, I'm training for myself. I have been around a long time and I have learned that these things happen. When I get a fight, I never say my opponent's name at any time in camp because I realize there's always a chance that something will happen. It's happened a lot to me on the local scene. It happened to me in my [UFC] debut as far as the opponent being switched out.
"So I just focus on what I need to do because I know the opponent can get switched out at any time. So I lost two weeks [of training] when this came around, but it was such a good opportunity for me that, of course, I had to accept it."
