UFC lightweight division fighter Anthony Pettis will be taking on Carlos Diego Ferreira at UFC 246. The former 155 pound Champion has not won back-to-back contests since 2014 and is coming off of an extremely deflating loss to Nate Diaz at UFC 242.
“I chose to go 170” – Anthony Pettis
Whilst speaking to MMA Junkie, the former lightweight champion talked about the upcoming bout. “I gave myself a year off from cutting weight,” Pettis told MMA Junkie. “My choices were to take a year off completely because the ballooning (and) ballooning down was just hurting me or (I could) move up 170. I chose to go 170. I had some success, and I had some little bit of not success with the Diaz fight.”
Pettis elaborated further, saying “the training camps, the mindset, and just the energy that I had in these fights? Oh, it felt so good. The reason I went back to 155 is my walk-around weight dropped about 12 to 15 pounds, so I was ready to start cutting down again.”
Anthony also discussed exactly what went wrong at UFC 242 against Diaz, including the botched USADA test that caused a laceration in his hand. “I’m sitting in the back about to fight, and that happens,” Pettis stated. “It’s chaos. It just taught me. Wins and losses – people are going to judge me no matter what. All it takes is two or three wins for me to be right back on top. … I broke my foot. I don’t kick checks. That’s not something I do. I kicked a check from Nate Diaz, and I broke my foot. It was just a mental error, and I saw it (afterward).”
“You look at the ‘Wonderboy’ fight. I got my nose broke, but I stayed so true to my gameplan. You saw my forward pressure, hands high, low kick, low kick, low kick. In the Diaz fight, I’m switching stances, throwing haymakers. It was a mental loss.”
