2011 has not been the year of Ryan Bader, but Saturday night’s victory over Jason Brilz at UFC 139 should be a great boost in his confidence as he heads into 2012.
“I finally found the right way to train and the right people,” Bader told MMA Heat’s Karyn Bryant Saturday night after his victory.
A former The Ultimate Fighter winner, Bader struggled to get into the win column this year after an amazing start to his career that saw him at 12-0 heading into 2011. Back-to-back losses to current and former UFC light heavyweight champions Jon Jones and Tito Ortiz saw him drop to 12-2 heading into 139.
He knew that something had to change if he hoped to continue to climb the ladder in the UFC and even possibly if he hoped to stay employed by the world’s largest MMA organization.
“Coming in with two losses, I haven’t won this year, and you don’t want a third loss anytime,” Bader admitted regarding his feelings heading into his fight with Brilz on Saturday night. “There’s a lot of pressure to win. I really had to kind of put it in the back of my head and say that, ‘You keep that pressure knowing that you have to go out there and fight hard, but you don’t let it get to you. You don’t let it let you fight differently.’ “
Bader fought through the pressure and earned a first-round knockout victory over Jason Brilz, utilizing his powerful punching to catch his opponent and finish him early.
“A lot of guys go out there and fight not to lose and that changes everything up. You don’t fight like you normally do. So I went out there and try to do every time and knock him out, and it ended up happening. So I’m confident in that.”
Bader made quite a few changes to his training for this fight, but it may have been an unexpected one that gave him the confidence to get back into the win column. He started using his old theme song again, a remix of the original “Darth Vader” Star Wars song.
“I found [the song] on the internet. It’s the Rage Against the Machine of it and I was like, ‘I’ve gotta’ roll with this,” he told Bryant.
He didn’t get to use the song in his last couple of fights against Ortiz and Jones, and he joked that the lack of his usual entrance song may have played a part in the outcomes, both losses.
Maybe it’s his theme song or maybe it’s that his skills have been refined. Whatever it is, Ryan Bader appears to have his confidence back, and that’s a very, very dangerous thing for the light heavyweight division.
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