LAS VEGAS – Adrian Yanez didn’t want to wait this long to return, but the silver lining is he’s had plenty of time to assess how he screwed up last time out.
Ahead of his UFC Fight Night 230 fight Saturday, Yanez (16-4 MMA, 5-1 UFC) has waited over six months to get his chance to prove he’s learned from the mistakes he made in his UFC 287 loss to Rob Font in April. Yanez lost by first-round TKO, his first UFC defeat.
“I got away from myself,” Yanez told MMA Junkie and other reporters at a pre-fight news conference Wednesday. “I wasn’t doing the right things. I was doing the right things in that first minute. But again, it’s only one minute of the fight, one minute of the fight. As soon as I got him rocked, I instantly tried to go for the kill.
“It was that weird thing because leading up to the fight, I was like, ‘I know who I have in front of me. This guy is a f*cking cockroach. He doesn’t die. He just won’t f*cking die.’ I said that with the utmost respect. That’s no disrespect to Rob. That’s a compliment, because not a lot of guys can do that. But yeah, I forgot who I had in front of me.”
Yanez was frustrated with the defeat from seconds after the referee pulled Font off him. His anger was referenced on the broadcast and Yanez later revealed the person he was solely mad at was himself.
The disappointment still exists, but he’s channeled it in a way he feels proper ahead of his bout on Saturday vs. Factory X bantamweight Jonathan Martinez (18-4 MMA, 9-3 UFC).
“I had to go back and work on the basics,” Yanez said. “I had to work on the mental part as well, too. Because I’ve got to stay within my game plan. If it’s working, keep letting it work, you know? … Just being able to mentally stay within a game plan or mentally don’t just throw everything out the window, you know?”
“… To me, it’s going to be fun for the fans. It’s going to be really, really fun for the fans because we’re both strikers. We both want to knock each other out. The way I see the fight playing out obviously is me getting my hand raised. It’s going to be fun, though. It’s going to be really, really fun.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 230.
