Paul Craig has already competed six times under the UFC banner, earning a record of 3-3-0 in the organization.
One thing Craig doesn’t think he’ll do is compete outside the promotion once that time in the UFC has come to an end.
“I do still think like that,” Craig said on Eurobash. “I don’t know if it’s a positive or a negative thing, but every fight that I do well in, I go in with the attitude that it’s my last fight. For my first fight in the UFC I thought I had to perform or I wasn’t getting that contract because the UFC are brutal, they want the best of the best. If I didn’t put on a performance, the UFC wouldn’t have kept me. When it came to the Ankalaev fight it was the same thing, if I didn’t win that I knew for a fact that I was out. It was the same again when I was coming off that loss to Crute. [Against Crute] it was the first fight on my new contract so I wasn’t that worried about it, but then I went into my next fight, the second fight on my contract, and it was another fight against a guy coming off the Contender Series, there was a good chance I could get cut [if I didn’t win]. I don’t see the point in taking massive amount of damage in other organizations for nothing but money. For me, it is a sport. I don’t see the point in taking damage for nothing for money. You can make money, you can lose money, sometimes you get dealt some hard cards. For me, a prime example of is Artem Lobov and his fight in BKB. For me, that was just two guys knocking lumps out of each other.”
There is no word yet on when Craig is going to return to action, last competing against Kennedy Nzechukwu at UFC Fight Night Philadelphia.
Craig has started to become known as the “last minute submission guy,” which is something the fighter doesn’t seem to have a problem with.
“I was at a show down in Wales cornering my mate Jordan last week and a few guys came up to me and said, ‘You’re the last minute submission guy, beautiful!’” he said. “That’s what it’s going to say on my tombstone, ‘Last minute submission guy’. If you go back to my early career I was finishing everyone in the first round with submissions, now I’m just saving it up until the last minute. I always look at the positive. Ideally, I’d like to finish these guys in the first round, but I’m just getting loads of ring time. The last three fights I’ve had in the UFC have gone to the third rounds. I’ve never been to the judges and I don’t plan on going there.”
Submissions have come at a premium for Craig, who has tapped out fighters in ten of his eleven professional MMA victories.
