This Friday night at Foxwoods Casino in Ledyard, CT, Nick Newell will look to rebound from his first professional loss and work his way back up the lightweight ladder when he takes on Joe Condon in the co-main event of World Series of Fighting 20. Newell hasn’t fought since his third-round TKO loss to Justin Gaethje last July in the promotions network television debut on NBC.
Newell recently spoke with Bleacher Report Columnist Mike Wellman on his podcast, The MMA Word. Newell opened up about coming back from defeat, the opportunity to fight in Connecticut and signing a new contract with WSOF.
Even though he’s been out of the cage since last July, Newell says he’s been getting better. His time away from the cage has allowed injuries to heal and his body to recover from his last few fights.
Newell recently re-signed with World Series of Fighting, after a lengthy negotiation with the promotion. Newell wanted to immediately get back into fights with the promotion’s top lightweights, while matchmaker Ali Abdel-Aziz told MMAFighting.com at the time he wanted to bring Newell back up the ranks more slowly.
It kind of sucks, because I want to go in there and fight the best but they’re in control of my contract, really. I do make decent money, but I’m also a pretty big draw, so I think that’s fair. I want to fight the best guys, but this is the guy they want me to fight. I’m not in a position to call anyone out because I lost my last fight. I say I do this fight, and we see how it goes, and just go from there.
Newell would have liked to get back in the cage much sooner. He was ready to fight in December, but his contract negotiations kept him out of the mix until he re-signed in February. Though his layoff was contract-related, Newell isn’t the first WSOF fighter to complain about not getting a fight. He said with his new contract, inactivity won’t be an issue.
They signed a big roster, and they didn’t have enough events, and I think that was the problem. They’re tuning down with the number of signings now and making an attempt to keep the guys more active. I’ve worked something into my contract that will keep me more active. I can’t complain about that now. Obviously this long layoff was not ideal, I was ready to go in December. But it is what it is. I get a hometown fight. I probably could have used a paycheck around Christmas time, but it is what it is, I don’t waste my money, I’m pretty good with it.
Newell’s home base is Fighting Arts Academy in Springfield, MA. He travels there from Connecticut to train during the week, and heads home on the weekends. His 13th professional fight will be his first in his home state. Newell noted the crowd will be filled with friends, family and fans, saying:
This is my first fight ever in Connecticut, not as an amateur, not as a pro, I’ve never fought in Connecticut. Everyone I train with has fought in Connecticut…The closest I’ve fought to Connecticut as a pro is Boston, which is about three hours away from where I live. So I guess that is a local high, but not really, you know. This is in my home state. It’s about an hour from where I grew up, but it’s at the casino and everybody loves going to the casino. I’ve already sold a bunch of tickets, and my teammate Leon Davis is also on the card, and he sold a bunch of tickets, so combined the place is going to go insane.
Newell’s climb back up the lightweight ladder starts with Joe Condon. Condon made his WSOF debut at WSOF 17 in January, stepping up on weigh-in day from a prelim fight to the co-main event. He made the most of the opportunity and defeated Jonathan Nunez with a third-round guillotine choke.
Newell knows he’s going in there against a veteran and fellow submission artist, but feels his mat skills are superior. He also feels he’ll be the better athlete in the cage, saying:
My coaches watched a lot of footage on him, and came up with some stuff I need to work on. I know he’s very relaxed, this will be his 20th pro fight, so he’s definitely a veteran. He’s fought a lot of good guys, and he’s fought a lot of fights at 170, so he’s big for the weight class. But I feel like I’m really strong for the weight class. I don’t think many people are much stronger than me. My explosion and my athleticism are through the roof now. I’ve been working at Ramos Athletic Conditioning Center on my strength and conditioning.
You know, [Condon is] good wherever the fight goes, he has good Jiu-Jitsu. He’s got a lot of submission wins. But I’m a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu, and if he wants to go to the ground with me, that’s his mistake.
Even though Newell still feels an illegal knee from Gaethje impacted the fight, he isn’t holding hard feelings towards the champion. Newell is over the loss and focused on getting back on the track to the title, whether it’s held by Gaethje.
I don’t really care [about avenging the Gaethje loss]…I’d obviously like to win the belt a little more than I would like to avenge that loss. I just don’t dwell on the past. If they offered me another fight with Justin I would take it, no problem. But it’s not like I’m sitting in my room with a candle lit, staring at a picture of Justin, hating my life. He beat me. Sometimes you lose.
Newell isn’t a stranger to losing. Even though his MMA career got off to a stellar start, he came up short in his first 17 high school wrestling matches. He used the feeling of defeat as fuel to continue winning, and even though he may no longer be undefeated in mixed martial arts, he says he isn’t letting the loss ruin all the hard work he has put in to get here, saying:
You only really lose when you give up. I never had any concrete goals in this sport, to be honest with you. I really just made a promise to myself to give it my all, train as hard as I could, and always fight to the best of my ability or give it everything I have, and then whatever happen, happens. And it’s taken me pretty far in this sport. I lost. It sucks. Did I want to lose? No. Do I feel a sense of relief? Hell no. I’d rather be undefeated, but it happens.
If I let something like one loss ruin me, then all my hard work that I’ve put in since I started wrestling when I was 14 years old, it means nothing if I just give up after getting sidetracked one time. That’s why I am where I am, because I didn’t give up. I lost my first 17 wrestling matches. I was getting killed and everyone in my high school was watching it. It was embarrassing. So I know what it’s like to be a loser, it sucks. And I think that’s why I win so much, because it keeps me humble, and keeps me hungry. I never want to go back to that, and no one is perfect.
So I lost, but I’m not done. Hell no. I’m better than what I showed. I had a bad night, and I know that isn’t the real me. I’m going to pick up the pieces and put them back together and come back stronger.
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