Stephens lost a grueling unanimous decision<\/a> that left him swollen, disfigured, and without the King of Violence title. The defeat did not deter him, as he wrote Sunday on Instagram.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
“Went up against the odds once again and went to war with one of the toughest in the\u00a0@bareknucklefc\u00a0game,” Stephens said. “… We had our differences and we settled it like real dogs\u2026 no gloves, no excuses, just heart. That\u2019s what this sport\u2019s about.”<\/p>\n
Stephens, 39, has competed in professional fighting for over 20 years. His pro MMA debut came in 2005 and he debuted in the UFC in 2007. He’s competed at the highest of levels since then and almost has as many losses as he does wins. For him, it’s less about record and more about legacy \u2013 and retirement isn’t on his mind.<\/p>\n
“This one wasn\u2019t about records, it was about legacy and testing myself against the best. We did that,” Stephens said. “Grateful for my family, my team, my fans, my sponsors and most of all, God for the strength to rise every time I fall. We ain\u2019t done \u2026 back to our weight, back to business.”<\/p>\n
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It’s unclear what Stephens’ next move will be. He’s diversified his violence portfolio in recent years, competing in a wide range of high-profile events from the UFC to PFL to BKFC to Gamebred Boxing and a Jake Paul undercard.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Jeremy Stephens releases statement after BKFC 82 loss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeremy Stephens has no excuses for his loss to Mike Perry. On Saturday at BKFC 82, Stephens lost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,51641,638,82,1160],"class_list":{"0":"post-194367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-jeremy-stephens","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-unanimous-decision"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}