Jordan Vucenic has managed to take a lot of positives away from his UFC debut, despite the result.
‘The Epidemic’ received a short notice call up to the promotion when Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady was ruled out of his bout against Guram Kutateladze a little less than two weeks out from the fight night.
Vucenic, who had recently competed at Cage Warriors 174, jumped at the chance and moved up a weight division for the trip to Abu Dhabi.
Speaking to Mike Owens of Inside Fighting, Vucenic disclosed that the loss didn’t sting as much as he thought it might as he felt he proved the doubters wrong. He said:
It wasn't as hard (of a) loss as I would have thought, because, I come in with a lot of odds against me. Even looking at everything that was wrote online. ‘Oh Jordan’s too small, he's going to get smashed, he's got no striking, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ Well, evidently I proved I wasn't too small, I proved that I do have some striking and I proved I can hang with some of the best in the world.”
The bout marked the first of a multi-fight deal for the 28-year-old, who is still coming to terms with the idea of fighting under the UFC banner.
“(It feels) Amazing. I still keep just giggling to myself now that I'm in the UFC, like I've just walked out the shop there, bought myself an Oreo ice cream bar and some M&M’s and I just giggled because I seen my shoes. I've got the UFC sliders on and I just giggled thinking ‘Isn’t it funny I'm going to meet The Rock and all that soon.' So I just giggling about it.”
Whenever an athlete takes a bout on short notice, it is a risk. Having fought just two weeks prior, Vucenic acknowledged the fact that circumstances were less than ideal heading into his UFC debut and led to him fighting a little differently than fight fans are used to seeing.
“It’s a lesson not a loss so much for me. I'm happy with the performance. Look, I fought against Kepa and then every day I was eating in a calorie deficit, but I wasn’t eat in the cleanest of foods.
“I was eating cake and that every day. These are the things that people don't take into consideration. You got I think I had like a week and a half taper before the Kepa fight, so no intense cardio. Then I have the Kepa fight. Then I had two weeks from the Kepa fight till that fight with no cardio for technically those three and a half, nearly four weeks of no intense cardio.
“Could you imagine if I was getting ready for a fight and I said to you ‘I am going to do a four week taper before the fight. You say to me, ’You're f**king nuts. Your fitness is going to get shot if you do that.’ That's basically what I had. So it's like in the fight where I dropped them, I'm like, ‘Oh, go, go, go.’
“And then I had that be in my head ‘No, no, no be a bit reserved, because you don't want to bust a nut and then you don't want to be regretting it second and third round.’ But on a full camp, he was getting put to sleep when I dropped him there because I would not have let him tie me up in rubber guard and stuff, I would have just been ripping elbows from the top.”
Ever the gentleman, and a man who rarely lets his emotions get involved or engages in ‘bad blood’ with his opponents, Vucenic admitted that in an unusual way, he was almost happy he lost, as it meant Kutateladze may well be able to continue on his UFC tenure.
“I'm almost happy I lost.
“And I'll tell you as for why. If I would have beat Guram, his career would have been over and mine would have just begun. Do you understand what I'm saying? Because it was probably the last fight on his UFC contract. But because Guram won and I lost my journey now just starts with the UFC & his journey gets a second chance.”
Watch the full interview below:
