Steve Garcia had the opportunity of a lifetime when he was matched up against two-time title challenger Diego Lopes in the opening fight on the historic UFC White House card in June.<\/p>\n
It was a chance for the usually soft-spoken featherweight to beat a higher ranked opponent and immediately inject himself into the title conversation at 145 pounds. Unfortunately for Garcia, after a strong opening round he was drawn into a firefight and Lopes scored a dramatic knockout to end the fight.<\/p>\n
It definitely wasn\u2019t the result that Garcia wanted but looking back at the fight now, he can immediately identify the mistakes made that led to the knockout.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very surprised when I went out there,\u201d Garcia told MMA Fighting. \u201cHe told me he wasn\u2019t going to take a backstep and all this stuff. It\u2019s pre-fight interview stuff but I thought he would have met me in the middle and he didn\u2019t. He seemed a little gun shy. He wasn\u2019t very aggressive. I was expecting these things from him and [then he didn\u2019t do it].\u201d<\/p>\n
When Lopes came gunning for him in the second round, Garica admits that he effectively threw caution to the wind, bit down on his mouthpiece and just started trading bombs \u2014 and he paid for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got into this brawl and my Albuquerque showed,\u201d Garcia said with a laugh. \u201cI was like we\u2019re just doing this. He hit me with a shot, it wasn\u2019t clean but it definitely threw me off balance. Almost like a [clubbing blow] with the forearm and I was trying to get situation again and we just ended up in a scrap. I feel like I should have been more technically sound defensively in that moment and I could have clinched, I could have done a few different things. Looking back afterwards, I feel like I didn\u2019t hit him with the best things I\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got dropped, in my head I\u2019m like I\u2019m good, I\u2019m good, I\u2019m good. I did that for like two or three seconds. There\u2019s a few things I probably should have done and I didn\u2019t do it. I think this is just me talking out loud, I\u2019m not far off. I was winning that fight until I wasn\u2019t. I \u2018ll take my \u2018L\u2019 like a man. I\u2019ll see it for what it is but the No. 2 guy in the world, who I expected to be so much crazier than me and it was going to be the fight of my life, it wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia says the whole White House experience was surreal but it was also much different than any other fight week he\u2019s had in the UFC.<\/p>\n
Because he was competing as the opening bout on the seven-fight card, Garcia and Lopes both had to deal with delays after weather forced the UFC to push back the start time. That didn\u2019t really affect anybody else but it definitely played a part in Garcia and Lopes getting ready to make the walk to the cage that night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it came to the actual warm up situation, me and Diego were the first fight so I think we were kind of the guinea pigs for the rest of the card,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cSo that kind of sucked. We were supposed to be starting right on time, that\u2019s what they told us. I had warmed up and everything as needed. I felt amazing. Then right in the middle of my warmup, they\u2019re like we\u2019re going to cut it. We\u2019ve got to do a 30 minute delay. I was like dammit. I was already riding that high. I\u2019ll try not to get too high or not to get too low but I was just sitting on the mat for about a half-hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right, we\u2019re going to start getting ready to go again. So me and [Mike Winkeljohn] started hitting pads and within a minute they\u2019re like \u2018we\u2019re getting ready to walk.\u2019 I haven\u2019t even broke a sweat again! It\u2019s kind of crazy. It is what it is. I\u2019m not going to complain about it because Diego had to deal with the same thing I did. It was just a lot of different variables and I feel like I needed to adjust to it better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia also went into his fight without one of his head coaches after Greg Jackson chose to sit out from the UFC White House card. He still had Mike Winkeljohn there by his side along with longtime teammate Joey Villasenor but Garcia confessed that it was still odd not to have Jackson there giving instructions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely felt different,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cSo Wink and Greg are the best ying and yang. I had a conversation with Christian Edwards today about how Wink and Greg corner and you have Wink who is this \u2018rah-rah\u2019 guy. He gets you amped up like \u2018we need to go get this round!\u2019 Greg, who can do that too, he has a more methodical approach to everything. Honestly, Wink did exactly what he needed to do. He got me amped up for that second round. Because I took out Joey Villasenor and he\u2019s awesome but what I\u2019m used to hearing another voice that\u2019s not there, it\u2019s different.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving Greg there, I talked to him already, and I know he would have pulled my head out of my ass because we would have had this conversation mid-round. When I got back to the stool, I would have told him what I\u2019m seeing, what\u2019s going on and he would have just kind of figured it out. It is what it was. Honestly between both of them I\u2019m undefeated. I haven\u2019t lost with Wink and Greg in my corner together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Returning home to New Mexico, Garcia was still dealing with the fallout from the loss and that included telling his young son what happened to him.<\/p>\n
After going undefeated for the past four years, Garcia never had to tell his son about losing before and that led to a heartbreaking conversation he hopes to never have again.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got home, my son asked me \u2018Daddy, did you win?\u2019\u201d Garcia revealed. \u201cI hadn\u2019t lost in four years so he doesn\u2019t know what it\u2019s like for dad to lose. I was like no, dad didn\u2019t win. He started crying. It broke me. It hurt me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like look when we play video games or something like that, I\u2019ll tell him if you lose \u2014 because sometimes I\u2019ll go in on him, I\u2019m like you need to lose \u2014 if you lose, what does daddy always tell you? He said \u2018try again.\u2019 Exactly so daddy has to try again.\u201d<\/p>\n
If that wasn\u2019t motivation enough, Garcia knows he was having a good night at the office against Lopes before he got caught and knocked out.<\/p>\n
Garcia is more than confident he can get back to that same position again and he\u2019s ready to show the rest of the featherweight division that he\u2019s capable of becoming champion sooner than later.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to see a whole new Steve Garcia that you haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d Garcia said. That\u2019s me breaking it down.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, everybody has it coming. I was telling people and excuse my language but everybody\u2019s f*cked. Everybody\u2019s getting it. That\u2019s fine. I don\u2019t know who else they want to give me but I tasted what it\u2019s like to be at the very top and I want more of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Garcia had the opportunity of a lifetime when he was matched up against two-time title challenger Diego…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-826162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826162","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=826162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}