When Alex Oliveira stepped in to fight Carlos Condit on short notice, there was a sense that it wouldn’t end well for the former UFC interim welterweight and WEC welterweight champion.
Carlos Condit did not look like ‘The Natural Born Killer’ we all knew and loved in his comeback fight against Neil Magny. He was comprehensively beaten with two of three judges awarding every single round to Magny.
Fellow veteran Matt Brown was his original opponent for UFC Glendale. However, a torn anterior cruciate ligament ruled ‘The Immortal’ out of the fight less than two weeks out. Given Brown’s recent mixed form, many saw that fight as tough, but winnable. Although Oliveira was coming off a savage slobberknocker loss to Yancy Medeiros, he seemed a little too close to his prime for comfort.
Sure enough, the Brazillian Cowboy stepped in and finished Condit in the first round.
Two weeks notice ⏱
Performance of the Night 🥇Cowboy Oliveira defeated Carlos Condit with a guillotine choke at #UFCGlendale 😳
Pure respect 💪 pic.twitter.com/rNFbEnHinl
— UFC on TNT Sports (@ufcontnt) April 15, 2018
Taking it like a champ
Not many people are talking about Condit’s fourth successive defeat in a negative light. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first being, he didn’t look that bad. He stayed in the fight until the very end. Although the result proved that Condit’s days of being in title contention are behind him, the general consensus was that he was still UFC calibre.
Secondly, how he took the loss overshadowed the fight itself. Eddie Alvarez wasn’t the only one who was blown away by his reaction.
Absolute respect @CarlosCondit , legend that always brings it . Your explanation and graciousness in defeat is Next level understanding, thank you .
— Eddie Alvarez (@Ealvarezfight) April 17, 2018
Condit uploaded a photo of himself bloodied, beaten and dazed immediately after the defeat to Instagram. The caption served as a statement.
“I don’t know what’s next guys… I still love this game, and most days I still feel that fire, I absolutely love what it do, but maybe my time has passed, I don’t know the answer. This is what I know, this is my passion. I will never stop training, and If that leads me back to the the octagon, you know I’ll try to make it bloody for ya.”
It was brutally honest and very revealing of his mindset post-choke out. He only grew his fandom addressing his ‘rough day at the office.’
https://www.instagram.com/p/BhqJTQvjzOI/?utm_source=ig_embed
Joanna Former Champion
One week before Condit stepped into the Octagon in Glendale, Joanna Jedrzejczyk tried and failed to win back her belt.
Her immediate rematch with Rose Namajunas didn’t go her way. She was soundly beaten in a tough five-round war. While she performed well, it wasn’t enough. ‘Thug’ took the chess match with all three judges scoring the fight 49-46 in her favour.
"You won a kickboxing fight, with one of the very best kickboxers to ever fight in MMA…"
"I'm just better, man."@rosenamajunas put on a CLINIC at #UFC223 to retain her title!
What a performance 🙌 pic.twitter.com/USIJQvBQ18
— UFC on TNT Sports (@ufcontnt) April 8, 2018
Misremembering
Jedrzejczyk’s reaction to the loss left a lot of her fans didn’t. Rather than take it on the chin, she complain about the adjudicating. She gave out about the commission to PolsatSport.pl (translated by Bloody Elbow) and even went as far to say that Dana White was ‘disgusted’ by the scoring of the fight.
“Even Rose’s coach said after the verdict that I won that fight. She again brought up the disparity in total number of strikes for both of them as “proof” that she should’ve won. Numbers don’t lie. Commission in New York is very young. They are stilllearningg how to score fights. Dana White was also a little bit disgusted by the scoring.”
What White actually said of the fight in the post-fight press conference was, “Rose looked incredible. If you look at how much she has grown since the Ultimate Fighter, she looked amazing tonight. Joanna did too. It was a great fight. I had it 2-2 going into the last round.”
Let this be a lesson to every fighter. Be like Dominick Cruz or Condit in defeat. It’s a far better look
