(Photo by Tracy Lee for Yahoo! Sports)
It was a tough loss to take, especially when it’s your second in a row in the UFC, but welterweight Martin Kampmann (17-5) is ready looking to make his return and would love to do it by rematching Diego Sanchez.
Kampmann lost a unanimous decision to Sanchez at the beginning of this month in the headliner for UFC on Versus 3 in Louisville, Kentucky. Both men battled it out for three rounds, leaving Sanchez bloodied and Kampmann with an injured hand, but the $160,000 bonus for “Fight of the Night” awarded by UFC President Dana White likely helped to lessen the pain.
Kampmann recently spoke to BloodyElbow.com about the loss, saying that he’d love to have a rematch with Sanchez so he could “beat him up one more time.” And understands why Sanchez doesn’t want to face him again.
“I still feel I won the fight. I can maybe see the judges seeing his aggression as a factor. Sometimes people get a lot of credit for that and coming forward swinging wildly and even though they weren’t landing, sometimes the judges score that. My best assessment of this situation is that the judges did not see clearly what was landing and what wasn’t…
“When you take two losses in a row it definitely pushes you down the ladder,” Kampmann replied when asked about his divisional position. “I still feel that I can compete with the very best in the division so I want to fight the best the UFC has to offer but really it’s up to them. When you have two losses in a row it doesn’t look good on your record. I feel both fights were solid showings and I wasn’t dominated in either of those bouts. In the Jake Shields fight I made a lot of mistakes and I was disappointed in my performance and while I made mistakes against Diego, I feel I had a much better showing and should have won the fight…”
“I would love to rematch Diego,” Kampmann answered when asked about another opportunity to face Sanchez. “I feel I won the first time but I would love to fight him again. If I was him I wouldn’t want the rematch either because imagine how his face would look after the second fight. I would love to beat him up one more time and hopefully not leave it up to the judges this time.”
Check out the link above to read the entire interview.