Corey Anderson hasn\u2019t tasted defeat often in his career, but two particular losses definitely sting worse than the others.<\/p>\n
Back in 2020, Anderson was likely one win away from an undeniable title shot in the UFC, but a rematch against Jan Blachowicz went sideways in a hurry when he suffered a first-round knockout loss. In their first encounter in 2015, Anderson dominated Blachowicz to win a lopsided decision, but the second fight was effectively the exact opposite.<\/p>\n
The same was true after Anderson suffocated Vadim Nemkov at Bellator 277 and nearly had a finish before an accidental clash of heads led to a no-contest. The immediate rematch at Bellator 288 saw the Russian keep the fight on the feet and ultimately pitch a shutout across five rounds. On Friday, Anderson has the third rematch of his career, this time against Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov, a fighter he viciously finished back in 2021.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s safe to say he\u2019s learned his lesson about expecting the same outcome again.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s definitely different fighter when we fought four years ago, five years ago,\u201d Anderson told MMA Fighting. \u201cI have to take that into account and not focus on that first fight like I did with Nemkov and the Jan [Blachowicz] one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one thing I learned in those two fights. You can\u2019t worry about the past. You\u2019ve got to focus on the new guy. Study all the new film, compare it with the old film, pick things apart and go out there with a new game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anderson admits he completely blew it in both of those previous rematches and has no one to blame but himself for those negative outcomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t go in there and completely change the game plan, do what you do but also it\u2019s a new opponent. It\u2019s a new person,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cThink about that stuff. In the past with Jan, I didn\u2019t do my game plan. I was like I\u2019m going to go in there and strike with this guy! I\u2019m going to strike with him. I\u2019m going to prove I can strike with him Last time I wrestled him and this time it cost me.<\/p>\n
\u201cNemkov, I was trying to stick to the game plan but I changed the way I went about it and one, I didn\u2019t train hard that camp and the style I tried to develop, it wasn\u2019t my style. It was striking to get to the wrestling instead of using the wrestling to get to my striking. It cost me.\u201d<\/p>\n
While his fight against Yagshimuradov is different than those two, Anderson acknowledged he can\u2019t make those same mistakes when it comes to believing the first fight is somehow going to determine the outcome in the rematch.<\/p>\n
Anderson doesn\u2019t want another repeat performance so he\u2019s doing his best to study and learn how much Yagshimuradov has grown and evolved and then adapt his style to produce a similar result as the first fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a chance to right that wrong,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cI\u2019ve got to do things than I did different then. It\u2019s my third rematch. What did I do wrong both times? I underestimated my opponent the second time and taking them as they were the first fight. My wife said always remember, it\u2019s a new fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, it\u2019s like OK third time\u2019s the charm. The first time, I underestimated the guy and thought we could beat him everywhere and the second time, we tried to switch things up. This time, we\u2019re not changing anything. We\u2019re going to do what Corey Anderson does, my bread and butter, what got you to the belt and we\u2019re going to do it even better. Now we\u2019re going to remember, he\u2019s still dangerous. Remember the things he caught you with in the first fight. Things he\u2019s been catching guys with in the tournament ever since we fought. Stay alert. Stay aware and stay to the present, 25 minutes locked in on what we\u2019ve got to do and dominate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ideally, Anderson wants to win Friday and then potentially set up a third fight against Nemkov because that\u2019s one matchup he desperately wants to run back. Nemkov recently signed a new long term deal to stay with PFL and he\u2019s already booked his next fight against Renan Ferreira in December.<\/p>\n
Anderson promises that winning his rematch against Yagshimuradov is the only thing on his mind right now, but once that job is completed, he would love to pursue vengeance against Nemkov in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy buddy, wherever he goes, I go!\u201d Anderson joked about Nemkov. \u201cYou would think so [that we\u2019d fight again]. He\u2019s there for two years, there\u2019s plenty of opportunity. We\u2019re both at the top. Why wouldn\u2019t be fight again? It\u2019s meant to be, it\u2019s going to happen but at the same time he might do like he did last time [saying] \u2018I need more time.\u2019 But whatever.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it makes sense, too. We\u2019re just pawns in a chess game. We can\u2019t really worry about that right now. We\u2019ve got Dovlet Yagshimuradov to worry about. Once I\u2019m finished with that one, we can pursue that but right now this fight is here. He signed back but we\u2019ve got to worry about the mission ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corey Anderson hasn\u2019t tasted defeat often in his career, but two particular losses definitely sting worse than the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,5963,7613,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-185832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-pfl","14":"tag-pfl-news","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}