Michael Chiesa is going to fight for quite a while longer.
Chiesa faces Max Griffin at UFC 310 in a preliminary bout on Dec. 7 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. After defeating Tony Ferguson at UFC Saudi Arabia in August, Chiesa shared that if he had lost the fight, he likely would’ve retired.
With a refreshed lease on the fight game, and using the comfort of his home base to his advantage, Chiesa’s mind is right as he prepares for his 20th walk to the octagon.
“No, my uncle told me to quit [saying retirement],” Chiesa told MMA Fighting. “I just know that when I’m talking about wanting to call it a career before the Tony fight, it was just because this sport is 99 percent mental. So I’m having mental struggles two out of the three fights in that losing streak, and if I couldn’t correct that by now, then, yeah, it would be imminent.
“But that’s not going to happen on Dec. 7. The result doesn’t change anything. I still want to compete, especially when you’re talking about UFC Seattle being on the horizon. Dana kind of teased that at a press conference — you think I’m going to miss an opportunity to fight in Seattle again? Hell no. And at the end of the day, Max Griffin’s not going to beat me. It’s just not going to happen. I know I’m in for a tough fight. I know what I have to do to get the job done, but I’m here for it. I’m excited and it all revolves around my head being in the right space. If my head wasn’t in the right space, I’m facing an uphill battle against an extremely tough fighter in Max Griffin, but my head’s in the right spot. My training’s been good, my body feels great, everything’s coming together for me to win this fight.
“So I have no doubt in my mind I win this fight, and then I patiently wait for that announcement of UFC Seattle.”
Prior to the win over Ferguson, Chiesa had lost three straight, including stoppage losses to Vicente Luque and Kevin Holland, along with a decision loss to Sean Brady. Chiesa was OK with his showing against Brady, but it was the Holland fight that hit home that he wasn’t competing to the best to his ability — especially from a mental perspective.
As he prepares to face another welterweight veteran in Griffin, Chiesa is able to pinpoint where things went wrong, and how they’ve been corrected.
“For me, it’s always battling fear on fight day,” Chiesa explained. “Everybody battles fear in fight camp. Most fighters are pretty honest about how sometimes you think about the consequences of what comes with the fight and if you get injured and things like that, and I think I just dwelled on it too much and I think the problem was [training[ in Las Vegas. I’m by myself — I have friends there, but it’s not the same as home. At home, I’m with my wife, I’m with my dog, I’m with my team, I’m with my people every day, where in Vegas, I get done at the gym and I’m just by myself.
“So I kind of would get trapped in my own thoughts and when you get trapped in your own thoughts, things start to kind of snowball, and that snowball turns into an avalanche, and then the next thing you know, that avalanche is barreling down that mountain getting ready to wipe you out. I think that’s just for me, it’s just really overthinking the worst outcomes. I’m very aware of what could go right and what could go wrong as I have been for every fight of my career, and I just think the times when I’m by myself in Las Vegas I really make those things to be a lot bigger than what they are. It’s just not a good place to be in.
“Fear is good. Fear makes you sharp, but you don’t wanna fight fearful. When I go back and watch that Kevin Holland fight, I fought him scared and you can’t fight scared. When you fight really bad things happen to you. You have to fight fearless. When you fight fearless. I feel like you’re not putting yourself in harm’s way as much, but when you fight scared, you’re just begging to get — for lack of better words — f*cked up. So that just will never happen again. Ever, ever again.”
