Jake Ellenberger and Mike Perry kicked off the UFC Fight Night 108 main card, it would be Ellenberger who was laid out in the Octagon when the fight was over.
The welterweight fighter says that being on the wrong side of a potential “knockout of the year” is a hard pill to swallow.
“It’s tough,” he told MMA Fighting. “I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine a couple of nights ago, and it was like, man, I’ve fought some really good guys. And I’ve come up short, or had a tough fight. For me, this fight, this was probably the best I’ve ever felt. Like pre-fight, warm-up, everything was on. I felt great. Because I’ve had fights where I wasn’t warmed up, or I didn’t feel good, or the first round came too quick. In the first round, I even felt good. I was like, let’s get this in the second round, let’s get it to the third, because I knew as the fight went on I could start to explore my transitions, more takedowns, that sort of thing. But it’s one of those things where you wake up and you’re like, fuuuck. It’s definitely a hard pill to swallow.”
For Ellenberger, it was the fighters seventh loss in his last nine Octagon appearances. Despite his recently troubles in the UFC, the fighter knows there’s going to be another shot to redeem himself.
“Win or lose, whether you get your hand raised or not, the sun rises the next morning,” Ellenberger said. “It’s really not as different as you think. People play so much into that, that egocentric kind of build-up — and I mean, it’s an egocentric sport, and I understand it — you can’t pay too much attention to it one way or the other. It’s like playing a very volatile market. You put your life savings in how you feel man, you’re going to wake up very disappointed.”
