- HOPING FOR UFC 105, HATHAWAY AWAITS THE CALL
by Lee Whitehead - MMAWeekly.com
Everybody is on tenterhooks in the U.K. waiting to find out who will be populating the UFC 105 card in Manchester, England. Several fighters are guaranteed to appear – namely heros that live nearby, such as Michael Bisping, Terry Etim, and Ross Pearson; but what of the other U.K. stars? We caught up with welterweight John Hathaway to see if he had any news.
"Were still waiting to hear about November, but if it's not then I guess I will be fighting again in the New Year," he explained. "No names have been mentioned to us, but I don't mind at the moment. I have had some time off to rest and I have just started training again so there are plenty of things I can work on in the meantime."
Having only just celebrated his 22nd birthday, Hathaway feels that time is on his side, and with an undefeated record of 11-0, he is on the right track through hard training and a level headed approach to his success. He realizes that there is a time to fight and a time to pick up new skills without pressure.
"Ideally I want to be fighting three to four times a year because of the way I cut my weight, so I like to be active and hover around an ideal cutting weight. In a way it is frustrating to not have anything booked at the moment, but I see it as an opportunity to tighten up a lot of elements in my game. I am training a lot heavier than I usually am because of the down time, so it's odd moving the extra weight around, but it's all good," he offered.
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Since making his Octagon debut as a welterweight at UFC 93, Hathaway has been finding his feet in the division, but is under no illusions that he is on the verge of mixing things up with some of the big names that surround him on the roster.
"If not for this next fight or the one after, I reckon I will be fighting guys in the eight to 10 spots at 170," he contemplated, but he is curious to see how the UFC plans on dealing with such a wealth of talent coming out of the U.K. at the moment.
"The division is stacked on both sides of the pond, and I am interested to see what they are going to do with the British guys moving forward. I mean, we have Dan Hardy, Paul Daley, Nick Oscipzak, Paul Taylor, and myself, so do they make us fight each other or do they put on a united front of us against the Americans? Who knows? But there are enough of us Brits out there to mix it up without crossing paths."
With no clear fight in sight, all Hathaway can do is focus back on his training and helping the rest of his team to develop. In his own mind he has improvements to make and is working diligently to seamlessly add new weapons to his arsenal, but you can tell that he really would much rather be in the cage tearing it up.
