With a potential pink slip coming his way after going on a two-fight losing streak, former WEC bantamweight champion Eddie Wineland went into his fight with Scott Jorgensen with one intention – to win, and win big.

When the WEC merged with the UFC on January 1st 2011, most fans were happy to see the lighter-weight classes finally get their chance on the big stage. And the fans weren’t the only ones who were happy, as fighters with just as much talent – and often even more – as the big guys, finally, had the opportunity for a bigger payday and the increased exposure of the UFC Octagon. 

None more so than the WEC’s first bantamweight champion, Eddie Wineland. At 27 years old, Wineland was a young man going into the peak of his career. But in reality, he was a 10-year vet, who has competed against some of the best mixed martial arts has to offer. 

His first two fights in the UFC were against former WEC featherweight kingpin Urijah Faber and Faber’s Team Alpha Male colleague, Joseph Benavidez. Neither opponent walked over Wineland, but they were still losses that would put him in pink slip territory.

“Nobody likes to lose, hell, I can’t stand losing one fight, let alone two in a row,” Wineland recalls. “I knew that if I lost here [vs Jorgenson] I would probably be out of a job. I went in there with a ‘knock this guy out or you’re done’ mentality. I was relentless and did what I had to do.” 

Whilst many would crumble under the pressure, especially against a tough opponent like Scott Jorgensen, Wineland blossomed, throwing heavy and hard strikes into the face of his opponent.

However, it was a certain British welterweight that served as the main inspiration for Wineland’s brutal knockout.

“After watching Dan [Hardy] fight, we were really impressed with the one-three-two combination that he threw [against Duane Ludwig, UFC 146]. It’s always been something that’s been in my arsenal, but we really started training it at the gym because it’s such a sneaky combination.

“You change the angle of the jab just a little bit, and you end up doing what Scott Jorgensen did. You throw your hands up, because you don’t know what’s going to be thrown next. It gave me the ability to close the distance, and the strike was right on the money and hit him on the button,” says Wineland.

Although the punch combination he used to send Jorgensen to the mat was a thing of beauty, the large gash across his head from the battle certainly wasn’t. Wineland agrees: “Dana White said that it was one of the top three worst cuts that he’d ever seen. But I took the stitches out myself five days later. It seems to be healing and you can barely see the scar anymore.” 

Wineland has been through a hell of a rollercoaster in his career, repeating the two defeat comeback in 2016 when he beat Frankie Saenz by TKO in Chicago.

Eddie's career MMA record to date: 24-13. UFC record: 6-7 - with his last fight a TKO win over Grigory Popov in UFC 238.