Cody Haddon Gets Candid About Injuries, Career Uncertainty

An examination by the UFC doctors on Tuesday night left Haddon howling when the slightest amount of pressure was applied to his foot. As he went to bed that evening, it was pretty cut-and-dry: if you wake up in the morning and it’s still like this, we have to pull you from the fight.

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He woke up, his foot felt the same, and he was pulled from the fight, replaced by Ethyn Ewing, who went on to upset Wellmaker and instantly catapult himself into the consciousness of the UFC audience. Stuck in New York without a fight and forced out for a second consecutive booking, the 27-year-old prospect from Perth was distraught.

“You start having all sorts of thoughts at that point,” Haddon said. “I think the biggest thing for me was I was worried —I felt a lot of shame, embarrassment, like I had let people down. I let myself down, too, although what happened was out of my control.

“I’m just really grateful that the UFC didn’t write me off because that was the biggest fear when I pulled out of that one,” continued Haddon. “I was like, ‘F***! That’s two in a row now; what are they gonna (think)?’ I wanted to fight in Perth, and they weren’t getting back to me, and I was like, ‘What’s gonna come next?’

“I don’t know what I would do. That would be my career done. I just wasted 21 years of training to get here for this to happen, and to get back is so hard.”

This is the part that fans don’t see and that the media covers all too infrequently —the part where a 27-year-old kid who has been chasing his UFC dreams since he was a six-year-old and a schoolboy boxing standout is stuck wondering if that dream is ever going to come to fruition because his body continues to fail him.

While trash talk and opinions about every subject under the sun —MMA-related or otherwise — dominate the headlines, fighters throughout the UFC and the sport as a whole frequently languish on the sidelines, working to get back into the Octagon, unsure what their next step will be if they’re forced to withdraw from another fight or they just can’t find a way to stay healthy. Most don’t talk about it, opting to constantly present an optimistic front and avoid talking about the frightening possibility that gnaws at them at night and burrows deeper into their thoughts with each week spent recovering and trying to get back.

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The fact that Haddon has taken the opposite approach, allowing himself to acknowledge the shame, guilt, and worry that came rushing in back in November and lingered until this fight was officially booked, is a testament to his strength and something that others hopefully pay attention to as well.

“To not be able to go through and compete has been really hard, really difficult,” continued the Luistro Combat Academy standout. “If they didn’t match me up this time, I started thinking about ‘If I can’t do this as a career and they get rid of me, I’m gonna have to go to the military because that’s the only other place I feel like I would belong.’

“I don’t have any education. I don’t have anything to fall back on. Yeah, I’m a decent coach, but I don’t want to be a 27-year-old former fighter turned coach —no disrespect to anyone, but I don’t want to be a coach because I failed in my actual career, and I’m forced into this next phase. I don’t want to be forced into something I don’t really want to do.”

Despite the setbacks, the UFC clearly recognizes that the skills he showed on the way to earning a chance to compete on Dana White’s Contender Series, in earning his contract, and in beating Argueta to secure his first UFC win are still present, that his upside remains intact.

He agreed, and the conversation shifted to the task at hand and how a strong performance this weekend can change everything.

“He’s very game, he’s tough, he’s only fought —he’s 4-4 in the UFC, but the guys that he’s lost to are world-beaters; they’re up there with some of the best,” Haddon said of Aoriqileng. “He’s only lost to Aiemann Zahabi and Raul Rosas, ranked fighters, which is a testament to his skill set.

“I have one good win —I win this fight, I finish this guy, whatever happens, the next day people are like, ‘Oh my god — who’s this guy? Where did he come from?’”

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In addition to his own success, both overall and in his first appearance, Haddon doesn’t have to look too far to see that the approach and skills he’s been developing in the gym can translate to tremendous success inside the Octagon.

“A hundred percent!” he agreed emphatically when I mentioned that seeing his teammate Quillan Salkilld race into the lightweight ranks must fill him with confidence about what they’re doing day-in and day-out in the room. “To see what he’s done in — what is it? Five UFC fights in 16 months? Five wins, four bonuses, just destroying these guys and making it look easy.

“It’s incredible, and then I think, ‘I’ve been training with this guy, he’s been my main training partner for the last three or four years.’ In the gym every day, we’re working alongside each other, pushing each other. The level of the gym? We know where it’s at, and Quillan is a representative of that, and I know when I get my time, it’s gonna be the same thing.”

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“Obviously, it’s different divisions and stuff like that, but it’s the skills, and at our gym, we have such high skills, and I feel like I can do it too —I just need to get healthy, get a bit of momentum behind me.”

The opportunity to start building that momentum again is just a couple of days away now, and when I asked Haddon how it was going to feel to finally have the UFC canvas under his feet again, the bantamweight lit up.

“I feel like entering the Octagon, feeling the fence, walking around, and seeing all the logos, the lights, my opponent, the referee, the crowd — it’s gonna be a reminder that this is what I was made to do and I belong,” Haddon said. “I belong here! This is my habitat. This is where I thrive. This is what I was born for.

“I wanna have a stacked year, get these fights happening back-to-back, and show what I’m capable of,” continued Haddon. “It’s exciting when I think about it, and I do feel like there is enough good to go around.

“I don’t know why that couldn’t be my reality? It could be — I have the skills, I have the platform; I just need to step into the cage, that’s it. If I step into the cage, everything else will unfold in front of me; I just need to step into the Octagon.”

Saturday in Macau, Haddon will cross that threshold for the second time, and hopefully, the long days on the sidelines will finally be a thing of the past.