Despite fighting out of Fortis MMA in Dallas, Tex., UFC featherweight Steven Peterson will do everything in his power to avoid fighting in the Lone Star state moving forward.
Peterson, who is currently scheduled to meet Chase Hooper at UFC 263 on June 12 in Glendale, Ari., hasn’t competed since a knockout win over Martin Bravo back in 2019 (highlights HERE). The 30-year-old has been booked a few times since then but unforeseen injuries have kept him out of action.
Luckily for Peterson, his comeback fight is not booked in the state of Texas. In a recent interview with MMA Island, Peterson explained why he will no longer be competing in the state that he trains in. UFC 262 was just held in Houston, Tex., but if the promotion heads back to the Lone Star state in the future it will not involve Peterson.
“I’ll gladly attend and hopefully corner some of our guys, but I will not be fighting in Texas any time soon,” said Peterson. “I am boycotting the Texas commission.”
“The Texas commission is f*cked, man,” he later stated.
Peterson, who is just 2-3 in UFC competition, believes that many of the decision losses on his record would have went the other way if they were contested outside of Texas. Most recently, Peterson lost decisions to Alex Caceres in San Antonio and Brandon Davis in Austin.
“I have nine losses in my career, five of which I would highly contest, sit with you, watch the tape and argue with you how I won the fight,” explained Peterson. “Those decisions were all lost in Texas.”
It’s rare that a fighter speaks out so bluntly about a commission and promises to never fight in a state again. The losses that Peterson is describing, at least the ones to happen under the UFC banner, weren’t too egregious. Caceres outlanded Peterson 94-67 in significant strikes and Davis outlanded him 114-73, while stuffing nine out of 10 total takedown attempts.
Still, Peterson has no desire to ever fight in Texas again unless something changes within the commission moving forward.
“I’m not going to put myself in the line of fire if I don’t have to, so I’ll be sitting out any Texas shows, and hopefully something changes with the commission and we get things worked out over here,” he said.