Athletes
Less Chaos, More Faith For Jamal Pogues
Heavyweight Takes New Approach To Showdown With Hamdy Abdelwahab At UFC Saudi Arabia
For most of his fighting career, Jamal Pogues assumed that he needed chaos to succeed in the sport. And, if we’re being honest, most of the time it worked out for him. Sure, there were losses, some more pivotal than others, but he has 11 wins, two of them in the UFC, so he’s done all right for himself.
But that chaos had to go, and as he prepares to face Hamdy Abdelwahab this Saturday in Riyadh, it’s gone.
“I feel like one of the reasons why I took that two-year break (from 2020 to 2022) and why I gained so much weight and got so fat, is that I thought I needed chaos to be a fighter,” said Pogues. “I thought I needed all of that. And right now, I'm leaning on faith. I'm leaning on God, I've been reading the Bible so much and I got to test my faith. And my faith starts February 1st, and I get to show it on February 1st. I’ve got 25 fights from amateur to pro. Fought two Contender Series fights, two wins in the UFC with chaos. And all I can think about now is what performance I can put on with peace in my life.”
UFC Saudi Arabia Airs At A Special Time: Prelims Kick Off Saturday At 9am ET / 6am PT
It's a lesson learned the hard way for the Los Angeles native, but one that also came with perfect timing, as he’s coming off a win over Thomas Petersen a year ago, and he won’t turn 30 until December, meaning that he’s probably approaching his physical prime in a heavyweight division where fighters peak late. So, he’s in a good place, one that began becoming real for him after he outpointed Petersen.
“It was a great year (in 2024) because there were a lot of growing pains,” he said. “I felt like I've matured. A lot of times we want certain things and we're not ready for those things. One thing people don't realize is when I came back to fighting, I almost shut the door on my career. I was done. I was wrapping it up, I gave my all and I couldn't get here. And when you get put back into that, ‘Hey, here you go, first fight back after two years is the Contender Series, now you're a UFC athlete,’ a lot of things just hit me all at once. Everything just hit me and it was like, yo, I'm done. Wait a minute, I'm in the UFC.”
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And he wasn’t done anymore.
Pogues laughs, but at the time, it was a lot to deal with. He defeated Marcos Brigagao on season three of Dana White’s Contender Series in 2019 but didn’t get a contract. He went 1-1 in his next two bouts in the LFA promotion but then walked away from the sport. When he returned, it was to the Contender Series, and this time, his win over Paulo Renato Jr. garnered him a spot on the UFC roster. Now he had to figure everything out.
Jamal Pogues, Part 2 | Dana White’s Contender Series: Next Level
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Jamal Pogues, Part 2 | Dana White’s Contender Series: Next Level
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“I feel like we ask for certain things and you have to be ready for it,” Pogues admits. “A lot of people just think, ‘Oh, he just goes in there and he fights.’ But there’s a lot that goes into a fight. It's more than just the physical part of it. It's your mental, too, and that's one of the biggest things. For someone like me, I'm not afraid to admit it. A part of me, from where I grew up in and my environment, it was hard to believe that someone like me could be in the UFC, even though that's something I dreamed of my whole life. And then you get signed to the UFC and it's like, ‘Hey, let's put all these cameras in your face. Hey man, let's talk about your life. Hey man, let's do this. Hey, let's go fight here.’ And the popularity came and it was like everyone's in your face now, everyone's smiling and the whole time you're like, ‘Yo, I just want to be alone so I can deal with my mentals and I just want to be a better man.’”
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Eventually, Pogues figured it all out. He changed his team, put folks around him that were focused on him, and with friends and family on board as well, he found the light at the end of the tunnel, and it wasn’t a train. Well, it was a train, but this one – Thomas “The Train” Petersen – was one he could handle.
“I've been in my way my whole career and I'm not going to blame my life and everything like everybody else has done, my upbringing; I've been in my way and it's time to get out of my way. And I feel like each fight back brought me closer to loving the sport again. And last year we fought Petersen, and I'm not going to lie to you, after fighting Peterson, he gave me that fire inside that I haven't had in a very long time.”
It's still burning bright a year later, and he’s ready to show the world what Jamal Pogues 2.0 looks like.
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Chaos-free.
“I’ve got to trust myself to do the same things, and that I'm going to be okay when I do this,” he said. “A lot of people need that chaos and I don't need that chaos, man. I lived in chaos. People don't know my life and what it took to be here. I'm done with that part of my life.”
UFC Fight Night: Adesanya vs Imavov took place live from anb Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on February 1, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!