Cody Gibson | From The Classroom To The Octagon

“I often talk about things I've learned in the sport more than what I'm doing,” Gibson said. “It's about hard work and things like that that I try to relate to. It's really easy to bring it back to them and try to kind of bring it full circle to them.”

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They should take a page from Mr. Gibson’s book when it comes to doing the hard work. The California native first competed in the UFC from February 2014 to February 2015, before being released from the promotion. In 2023, he competed on season 31 of The Ultimate Fighter, where he made it to the finals, but ultimately lost by unanimous decision. 

However, that didn’t deter Gibson, who once again returned to the UFC last March, where he lost a unanimous decision to Miles Johns. But since then, Gibson has gone on to earn back-to-back wins over Brian Kelleher and Chad Anheliger. In his win against Kelleher, Gibson picked up the win by submission and despite going the full 15 minutes last time out against Anheliger, Gibson is proud of the performance he gave. 

“Being able to keep that pace (full 15 minutes) and, just showcase that I'm long and lanky and I can strike,” Gibson said. “I think I have a higher grappling ability than people give me credit for and I have some submission losses early in my career that I think kind of haunt me when people look at your record and how you've lost and stuff like that, but it's been a long time and I do feel like my grappling, especially since moving to The Pit in St. Louis five years ago, it's elevated. I was happy to showcase that.”

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The newest test for Gibson this weekend is Da’Mon Blackshear, who has faced some high-level bantamweights since making his debut against Youssef Zalal in 2022. He recently got back in the win column in November after submitting Cody Stamann in the first round. Gibson is interested to see how he matches up against Blackshear.   

“It's a step up in competition from my last couple,” Gibson said. “I’m on a two-fight win streak, so naturally, it's going to get progressively harder from here on out, but that's what I like.”

When you look at the grappling aspect of the fight, Blackshear also has his fair share of impressive submissions, securing the third Twister in UFC history when he faced Jose Johnson in 2023. In addition to that win, Blackshear also has nine other submission victories and two wins by knockout. 

Ahead of every fight there are always a lot of questions surrounding both athletes. Who is the better striker? Who is the best grappler? Who is going to come out victorious? Gibson is eager to answers all of those questions and more. And along with the questions, there are sometimes a bit of nerves on the fighter’s side. At least that’s the case for the 37-year-old. 

“There's always a little bit of (nerves), but you just have to embrace that and know that it's coming,” Gibson said. “I feel like I perform my best when I'm most nervous. That's when I seem to have my best performances, and this guy has definitely got me nervous. He's a dangerous guy, a tough guy, so I'm looking to go out and put it on him.”

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As he makes the walk to the Octagon on Saturday night, he’ll embrace every emotion that he feels up until that point. 

Somebody gave me some really good advice not too long ago; they said all the emotions you go through during fight week, embrace them because they're supposed to be occurring. Whatever those emotions are, those are the emotions that are supposed to be happening. Embrace them. Go with them. I just embrace everything as it comes and that's my approach.”