An important part of any prizefighter’s makeup is the ability to dust yourself off after a setback and get right back to work. Those who lack the mental fortitude to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and rebuild after facing obstacles in their careers tend to fall by the wayside in the fight game.
Few fighters in the history of the sport have been tested as much in this regard as Aaron Aby.
The Welshman, who has been living with cystic fibrosis his whole life, was diagnosed with stage 3 testicular cancer in 2017. For a young fighter making waves in the professional game, this was a devastating blow.
After an endless cycle of surgeries and chemotherapy, Aby was told he was unlikely to survive. But survive he did. Not only did Aby regain his health, but he also returned to his career as a professional mixed martial artist.
Starting Over
As he prepares to face Mohammed Walid (7-4) at Oktagon 69 next week, Aby (16-10-1) finds himself in a familiar position once again: starting from scratch.
The former Cage Warriors star had hoped to become the Czech-based promotion's flyweight champion after signing with the organization in 2023. However, after losing three of his first four fights under the Oktagon banner, he is now focused on taking the first step on the ladder.
"I'm a little bit disappointed with the results truthfully", Aby told me when we spoke this week, "but overall I've enjoyed the experience. I feel like I'm developing, I'm improving. I've had tough fights, obviously fighting (Zhalgas) Zhumagulov coming out of the UFC. Fighting Sam Creasey who was number one ranked in Europe at the time, and then like the Elias Garcia fight, I was dominating until the cut was stoppage, and then a win over Christopher Daniel, so maybe the results don't tell the whole story in honesty and i'm just again looking at this next fight now, and i'm looking to get back in that win column and put on another good performance. That's the aim".
Lessons Learned In Defeat
Aby's loss to UFC veteran Zhalgas Zhumagulov came at Oktagon 63 in November, and he insists he has taken plenty of lessons from that fight that will stand him in good stead going forward.
"I think you know going into that fight, I always knew it was it was going to be tough", he admitted, "and he was going to be a strong, explosive athlete. And he felt really strong in there. I managed to get in deep on a double leg and I'll finish that 99 times out of 100, and he managed to just get away from me.
"I feel like I maybe went into that fight a little bit too light in the prep, so I've looked to maintain a bit more size this fight. But there were some positives I took from it. The first round was tough and then i felt myself coming back into the fight. In the second round, I felt like i started getting his timing down, started reading what what he was throwing and what he was looking to do, and then just at the end of the second round he managed to finish strong and and take that round away from me.
"So then you're going into the third instead of it being 1-1 it's 2-0, and then obviously it's hard to come back against experienced guys and and pull something back out of the bag like that.
"But it also taught me stuff I've known before...that i'll never quit, and I'll keep moving forward, and I feel like now I just have to make sure from the first minute that I'm trying to win the fight, and not just like settle in too much into it".
Aaron Aby faces Mohammed Walid at Oktagon 69 in Dortmund, Germany on Saturday, April 5th.
