Athletes
Jeremy Stephens | Returning Home
Lightweight Jeremy Stephens Makes His Much Anticipated Return To His Hometown This Weekend Against Mason Jones At UFC Des Moines On April 3, 2025
Jeremy Stephens was doing just fine in the years following a 34-fight run in the UFC. His family was good, he was fighting in MMA and boxing, and he even kicked off a bareknuckle career where he racked up a 3-0 record that included knockouts of UFC vets Eddie Alvarez and Jimmie Rivera.
In other words, he wasn’t strategically plotting every move he made in order to get a return call to the UFC.
But then he heard that the Octagon was going to be touching down in his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa. And things done changed.
Saturday's Fight By Fight Preview
“I just kind of made my own opportunity,” Stephens said. “I was just doing my own thing, and I made it happen. And there's a lot more certainty over here with UFC. The reason why I did this is just to create more opportunities for myself. I'm a prizefighter at the end of the day. I don't just get labeled the MMA guy or a bareknuckle guy. I can break your heart anywhere when it comes to fighting; it's just something that popped up.”
The 38-year-old makes it sound like the easiest thing in the world, to come back to the UFC for the first time since 2021 and not only get a fight, but a fight in his hometown. Was it as easy as he makes it sound? Kinda.
“People always asked me, ‘Why don't they do it in Iowa?’ And it's such a huge market there. I was saying, you guys are going to be so shocked and wait until you see it on production and it's going to be crazy. I'm the real main event there, dude. I'm telling you, I'm going to blow the roof off that mother**ker. People are probably going to leave before the main event, I guarantee you this. And then UFC, I don't know if they heard me or whatever, literally the next day or two, they're like, we're going to Iowa.”
Stephens, who now makes his home in San Diego but continues to go back to Iowa to visit, and who always repped the state hard, was happy to hear that the UFC was going to make it there for the first time since UFC 26 in June of 2000, but wasn’t really thinking about making a pitch to be on the card. But after visiting his mom after his January win over Alvarez, people were talking.
WATCH: Jeremy Stephens' Fight Week Interview
“When I'm back there, everybody's congratulating me on the fight,” he said. “Everybody's just super pumped and they're like, ‘Dude, you got to fight in Iowa.’ And before I left Iowa, my wife said, ‘You need to hit up Dana.”
Stephens wasn’t so sure, but he asked his wife to write up a message to UFC CEO Dana White, and he’d send it to him.
“He literally got back to me the day that I was leaving Iowa,” said Stephens. “And on my way back, my flight was going to go to Denver and then Denver to San Diego. But it got delayed. So I ended up going to Vegas. Dana had hit me up and told me, ‘I'm going to give your number to(UFC CBO) Hunter (Campbell), he is going to call you.’ And I land in Vegas and Hunter's hitting me up. I call him, we talked, I flew back to San Diego and the next day Hunter calls me, and he's like, ‘Congratulations, we ended up locking in an opponent.’”
Not surprisingly, Stephens couldn’t be more excited.
Order UFC 315: Muhammad vs Della Maddalena
“Here we are, we're headed to Iowa,” he said. “I couldn't even make this up if I was writing a movie script. So this is just absolutely amazing, and it's my time. I'm going to go in there and shock the world once again.”
And he gets to do it at home in a place that was once the center of the mixed martial arts universe. Back in the day, if you were a UFC champion, odds were good that you came out of the Miletich Fighting Systems camp, home to champions Pat Miletich, Jens Pulver, Matt Hughes, Tim Sylvia and Robbie Lawler, and a host of other fighters who would be comfortable in BMF title fights if they existed back then. I ask Stephens what his home state means to the sport.
“You ever seen that movie Field of Dreams,” he asks. “At the end, the dad goes, ‘Is this heaven?’And Kevin Costner goes, ‘No, it's Iowa.’ Listen, if you throw a dart in the middle of the U.S., it lands on the bullseye, Des Moines, Iowa, the 515, the heart that pumps this nation. These guys deserve MMA, they've needed UFC to come back for a while and now they're getting it. And I don't care what anybody says, champion or not, I'm the best mother**ker who's ever been, ever was and ever will be to come out of Iowa and Des Moines. And they get to see me fight there in the biggest promotion ever for the first time in Des Moines.”
So the “Lil’ Heathen” is the Bret Hart of Des Moines?
View Jeremy Stephen's Athlete Profile Page
“I'm the HBK (Shawn Michaels) bro,” he responds. “The heartbreak kid. I break a lot of hearts, man.”
Stephens laughs, and the excitement is evident, and it’s real.
“Excited doesn't even describe the word,” he said. “It's a monumental moment.”
But will there be more after Saturday night?
“I'm here to put a warning out there,” he said. “This isn't a comeback, this is a warning. I ain't done yet.”
UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Figueiredo took place live from Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa on May 3, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!
Tags