Kron Gracie believes the door could still be open for a UFC return, but he has some work to do.<\/p>\n
After getting stopped by Bryce Mitchell at UFC 310 this past December, the UFC elected not to re-sign Gracie after going 1-3 in the promotion, and dropping his final three octagon appearances. The fight with Mitchell was an anticipated contest, but it wasn\u2019t the most aesthetically pleasing bout up until Mitchell slammed Gracie to the canvas in Round 3, before landing some elbows that knocked Gracie unconscious.<\/p>\n
Now, as Gracie prepares for his MMA return in the main event of Victory Fighting League\u2019s Dec. 12 event in New York, the 37-year-old recounts his fight with Mitchell in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I was fighting a top guy, obviously,\u201d Gracie told MMA Fighting. \u201cHe was in the top 15, and I knew it was going to be a tough fight, but I was very confident and I was doing well, and I had a lot of confidence in my guard and pulling guard, and I just made a mistake and I paid for it. So I feel like that\u2019s just kind of the name of the game. Sometimes you zig and you should have zagged, and then you get cracked and so that\u2019s what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201c[From an] actual technical point of view, there were some technical mistakes I made and that\u2019s why I paid the price. But this is the fight business, and I know the the game is dangerous, and that\u2019s what it is. So it\u2019s nothing new to me, or nothing I\u2019m shocked about, it didn\u2019t really change anything in my mind. I was actually trying to get back into that fighting as soon as possible. It just kind of took a long time for me to get another fight, so I didn\u2019t try to take this year off. \u2026 I was trying to get back in fighting, trying to get motivated to get on another card and continue. I felt like that [fight with Brcye] was kind of like my momentum to get back into it, and things didn\u2019t happen the way it should have, and it took a little longer and now, now we\u2019re finally getting it done. So it\u2019s not like I tried to take this year off.\u201c<\/p>\n
Gracie\u2019s parting of ways with the UFC didn\u2019t officially get confirmed until June, so he had to wait and see what was going to happen with his career for over six months following his loss to Mitchell.<\/p>\n
After facing a slew of tough competition throughout his four-fight run \u2014 including fights with Mitchell, Alex Caceres, Cub Swanson and Charles Jourdain \u2014 Gracie was a bit surprised the UFC moved on from him. Although it wasn\u2019t ideal, Gracie understood the UFC\u2019s decision and learned a valuable lesson from his time in the company.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time, I was fighting a top-15 guy, and I think like anything that was gonna happen, I would think I was going to get another fight [in the UFC],\u201d Gracie explained. \u201cJust generally [if] you\u2019re fighting a top guy, if you win or lose, you should be able to stay in the game. But I think the way that I fought, the way I pulled guard, and the way that it happened, a lot of fans were disappointed and I lost a lot of stock in that transition. So, I think that\u2019s kind of like as a fan and as a business, the UFC is a business, it makes sense for them to be like, \u2018Well, you lost a lot of fans, like go get your fans back, go get some wins and see what happens.\u2018<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, I can understand. It\u2019s a business. If pulling guard is going to be that much of a detriment to the ability to keep fighting, and the ability to make money, then f*ck it, I won\u2019t pull guard ever again. And I already made that decision that I\u2019m done with pulling guard. I always do really well from pulling guard, and it was something that I had in my back pocket, but I feel like now, not only for myself, I have to try to get on top. I have to try to be effective in different positions, and I kind of didn\u2019t really have that mindset because I was so successful from the bottom, generally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gracie now faces Tom Picciano for the inaugural VFL featherweight title at The Road to Redemption at Terminal 5 in New York City. Picciano, a seven-fight CFFC vet, has won his past two bouts, including a first-round submission win in his VFL debut in August.<\/p>\n
As far as the likelihood of a UFC return, Gracie believes the door could be open if he can show that level the UFC expected from him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a couple of different managers kind of speaking for me and everything, so I don\u2019t really know what was said,\u201d Gracie said. \u201cBut If I was the UFC, that\u2019s what I would be thinking. If I was the UFC I\u2019d be thinking, \u2018Hey, go get some fights and see what happens.\u2018 We never know what happens after a fight or after two. Things could go up, things could go down, things could go to the left or right, other things can happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know. I\u2019m not really thinking too much past this fight. I\u2019m trying to get this fight. I\u2019m trying to show my fans that I\u2019m, I\u2019m a really good fighter and I can do some really good performances, and I can create a lot of momentum. I think this fight is more about just showing that I don\u2019t need to pull guard and I could, I could beat somebody\u2019s ass. That\u2019s the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kron Gracie believes the door could still be open for a UFC return, but he has some work…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702,3194],"class_list":{"0":"post-314494","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-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news","16":"tag-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314494","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=314494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}