Mental health battles have become a regular occurrence for Nathaniel Wood over the past two years, but the UFC star has been able to use overthinking to his advantage come fight night.
Wood, 29, has shown he is a dark horse at 145lb since moving up to the weight class earlier this year, winning back-to-back decisions against Charles Rosa and Charles Jourdain in his new division. 'The Prospect' cited a loss to Casey Kenney at the back end of 2020 as the moment his mental health started to deteriorate, but Wood has been able to turn a negative into a positive by using his internal struggles to his advantage during training.
The Brit told Mirror Fighting about his mental health battles: "The only reason I mentioned it was because I was using the anxiety and OCD to my advantage, because I think [Michael] Bisping asked me a question about how I prepared for Jourdain," he said. "When you suffer from anxiety and you have a fight coming up, I was just picturing Jourdain as being the best thing on the planet. I was thinking this guy is going to knock me out or submit it, so it meant the training was non-stop.
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"It's hard sometimes because it's very draining, waking up every morning stressing about it as it does sometimes make it a chore but on the positive it's made sure that I've been 100 per cent ready. I was the best fighter I could be on fight night because of the anxiety I had. Since coming back after that two-year layoff I have felt the pressure for my fights, as there was a lot more riding on it but pressure makes diamonds."
Wood admitted that before his win against Rosa at UFC London in July, the possibility of being cut from the UFC was making him worry about going back to his old job. Overthinking has been a draining process for the Brit, but he credited it for his recent wins and thinks he is now a better fighter because of it.
"It's just having too much time to overthink things," he added. "Going into my July fight, I kept thinking if this guy beats me the UFC are going to cut me. I'm thinking all this crazy stuff like I'm going to run out of money, lose my flat and be back on the building site, but because I'm thinking that it made sure I left no stone unturned. It was a very draining process, but that process made me a better fight night and I would say it's because of all that overthinking."
