Kevin Lee reflects on his submission defeat to Tony Ferguson and admits he probably shouldn’t have accepted the fight.
Kevin Lee admits he might have jumped the gun by pursuing an interim lightweight title bout with Tony Ferguson at UFC 216 in 2017.
Lee entered the bout riding a five-fight win streak but admits he probably shouldn’t have accepted the fight because he wasn’t ready to take on a fighter of Ferguson’s caliber.
“I’m not gonna say I would do it differently because I don’t regret anything. I might have done some stuff better though,” Lee told The Schmo in a recent interview (h/t MMA News). “When I first made like, the big push, when you see me do the Michael Chiesa thing. I didn’t know that that was gonna happen, no regrets, no regrets. But even afterwards, the calling out Tony Ferguson, and getting that fight way too soon, way before I was supposed to get that fight.”
“Sometimes I regret it, I’m not gonna lie to you,” he continued. “Sometimes I regret having that overriding confidence to do something you know you shouldn’t do. I knew I wasn’t ready for Tony, at the time I took that fight. I just was like, ‘Alright, we gonna do it. Gonna put my balls out there and we’re gonna see what it is.’ My balls was bigger than my brain.”
Lee also reportedly fought Ferguson with a staph infection but failed to disclose this information to the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC). ‘The Motown Phenom’ lost to ‘El Cucuy’ via third-round submission and was recently released by the UFC following back-to-back losses to Charles Oliveira and Daniel Rodriguez.
Lee has since signed with Eagle FC and is expected to make his promotional debut against Diego Sanchez in March.