LAS VEGAS \u2013\u00a0Thomas Petersen met the media Saturday after his win over Guilherme Pat at UFC\u00a0Fight Night 272.<\/p>\n
Petersen (11-4 MMA, 3-3 UFC) took a majority decision from Pat (6-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) to close out the prelims at\u00a0the Meta APEX in\u00a0Las Vegas. To say the American was emotional after his win over the Brazilian is an understatement.<\/p>\n
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The victory gave him a rebound from a brutal knockout loss in Brazil that got Vitor Petrino a bonus this past October \u2013\u00a0and sent Petersen to the proverbial shadow realm.<\/p>\n
“I lost my last fight in the worst way possible and I woke up in an ambulance in motherf*cking Brazil, a million miles away from my wife,” Petersen said while choking back tears at\u00a0his post-fight news conference. “When that kind of sh*t happens to you in this sport, you don’t want to do it again.<\/p>\n
“But this is what I love to do, and I was willing to put it on the line and it worked out for me.”<\/p>\n
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Petersen, who has a day job as a mechanic servicing concrete mix trucks in Minnesota (shout out, AVR Concrete<\/a>!), said he’d been having some doubts in the UFC. The 31-year-old former LFA heavyweight champion has alternated wins and losses so far throughout his UFC tenure.<\/p>\n But getting back on the right side of things against Pat, particularly after the way he lost to Petrino, appears to be a massive confidence boost for Petersen.<\/p>\n “I still belong here, is what that win brought me,” Petersen said. “\u2026 This fight was if I belong here or not. That’s how I felt. I showed I still belong here, and I just want to keep going.”<\/p>\n Check out Petersen’s post-fight interview in the video above.<\/p>\n