Under helgen som gick fick vi ta del av supergalan UFC 244 där Jorge Masvidal kammade hem “BMF”-titeln genom att stå som segrare i huvudmatchen mot Nate Diaz. Någon som däremot inte kammade hem någon vinst var lättviktaren Gregor Gillespie. Gillespie slutade natten som besegrad via knockout då han tog emot en huvudspark av Kevin Lee.
I en intervju med MMAFighting berättar Gillespie att han inte ångrar att han valde att utmana Lee då denne trots allt var en högre utmaning än vad han fått erfara hittills i sin karriär, vilket var precis vad han eftersökte.
I asked for a step up in competition. Kevin Lee is a really good opponent. A lot of people were saying, ‘He’s on a losing streak.’ Kevin Lee is not on a downward spiral and I knew that going in. Not for one second did I think I’m picking a guy going down, he’s not. You look at his last four or five fights, they’re all guys who have fought for a title or have a belt, he’s super f*cking good. I know that when you ask for better fights like that, your risk of losing goes up. That’s kind of how that goes. So that’s something I was definitely very, very aware of. That’s the risk when you’re fighting anyone, especially in the UFC, but when you take a fight against a guy who fought for a title at one point, your risk of getting beat—not just beat, but knocked out—goes up. That’s a risk I was willing to take.
Gillespie fick även frågan om han funderar på att flytta ned till fjädervikt vilket han var tydlig med att han inte var intresserad av. Gillespie själv såg inte problemet som att Lee var tyngre under matchen och ansåg inte heller Lee hade tur utan han blev helt enkelt träffad med en perfekt spark.
No, that’s not something that I’m really interested in. To be completely honest with you, I don’t know what Kevin weighed the day of the fight. I can’t imagine him being much heavier than me, I was pretty heavy the day of the fight. I may not look like I’m huge for lightweight, but I carry weight well. I was over 170 the night of the fight. I don’t know what Kevin Lee weighed, but he couldn’t weigh that much more than me, we weighed in the day before at the same weight. And again, the size had nothing to do with that. He landed a perfectly executed, perfectly timed, unbelievable kick. People have been saying it was lucky, it was not lucky. It was not unlucky. It was an absolutely perfect kick and it was very well-executed and I give him all the props in the world.
Inför sin nästa match, berättade Gillespie, planerar han att komma tillbaka snabbare då han tyckte det tog för lång tid mellan sin förra match och mötet mot Lee.
I’d like to get in there, I’d like to get back in, but we’re not gonna rush it. I’m not gonna wait as long as I did this time. I didn’t purposely wait 10 months, it’s just that the opportunity to fight a guy I wanted to fight wasn’t there, then this came along and it was the right opponent, so that’s why the time took so long. It’s going to be sooner than it was this time.
Matchen mellan Lee och Gillespie ägde rum under huvudkortet på UFC 244 som ägde rum den 3:e november på Madison Square Garden i New York City, USA.
