Win or lose, the days of post-fight
laziness are over for Joe “Daddy” Stevenson.
“Not any more,” Stevenson told
MMAWeekly.com after his disappointing decision loss to Diego Sanchez at UFC
95. “Joe doesn’t take time off anymore.”
After a few days with his
family, he will return to the gym to help training partners prepare for
upcoming fights.
Though he fell short in his
goal of introducing Diego Sanchez to the lightweight class with a loss,
Stevenson recognized the danger of leaving things to the judges.
“That’s fighting,” he said. “If
the judges tell you, ‘you lost,’ you lost. I’m upset at myself, I shouldn’t
have let it go to the judges, should have tried to finish the fight, but c'est la
vie.”
Stevenson struggled to find his
range during their 15-minute meeting, and was thrown off by a more tactical and
versatile Sanchez.
“I didn’t expect him to
backpedal as much,” said Stevenson. “I thought he was going to stand in the
middle a little bit more, be a little bit more aggressive.”
Back to the drawing board,
Stevenson said he would welcome a second chance against Sanchez. Questions of a
possible jump back to welterweight – or, more of a stretch, to
featherweight – will go unanswered for now.
UFC 95 VIDEO: Joe
Stevenson Post-Fight Interview
