Julian Erosa Fighting With Newfound Focus

AJ won’t be awake when dad steps into the Octagon this weekend, but there will come a time when he knows what his hero does for a living and may think that it’s pretty cool to have a father who fights in the UFC and wants to follow in his footsteps. As a veteran who came up the hard way in the sport and dealt with more than his fair share of ups and downs, how would Erosa feel if that day came when his son asks for his own pair of four-ounce gloves?

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“My parents didn't necessarily push me to do anything, but they always accepted anything that I wanted to do and they always had my back on it,” he said. “So I feel like I'm going to kind of have that same kind of outlook where there's definitely some things I want him to try because I want to at least open his mind to things. I definitely want him to do jiu-jitsu when he is younger because I think it builds a good character in kids, especially young kids. But he doesn't have to do anything. If he decides after a little bit of time that he doesn't want to do jiu-jitsu anymore or whatever it is and he wants to do something else, I'm completely cool with that. If he wants to be a fighter, that's okay. It's tough, and from my point of view, it's been tougher than most. So, at least he'll have that and have my experience to bounce ideas off of if he wants to do it or not. For me, I was so optimistic about it because my dad never really fought. He boxed a couple times when he was very, very young. But my dad didn't have any fighting experience, really; neither did my mom. And so, when I got into fighting, it was one of those things that was just like, well, it's a hobby. I'm going to keep doing this until it's not fun anymore. But I had to learn all those ups and downs fresh because I didn't have anybody with that type of experience that knew the hardships of it all.”

Erosa sounds like a dad already, and he also sounds like a wily veteran at the age of 34. Of course, 41 pro fights will do that for you, and it adds a layer of intrigue to an already solid matchup with the rising star Rodriguez, who has won four straight leading up the bout, while Erosa has made it a habit of upsetting rising stars.

“It's a good test for a kid like Christian Rodriguez to fight me, and then it's also a good test on the other end to see if I still can compete with these younger guys that are coming up that have a little bit of momentum behind them,” said Erosa. “And he’s coming from a good gym, as well, so it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I really like this fight. I know Christian Rodriguez is a tough, durable guy. He is one of those guys who is kind of like me where he’s patient and sticks around the fight until the other guy gets tired. And I've always been kind of like that, as well.”

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The most telling example of that theory was when Erosa faced unbeaten Sean Woodson in 2020, stuck around, forced the tiring Woodson into a mistake and submitted him in the third round. It was a master class of Fight IQ, and it’s what you want to see as a fighter gets older. Speed, reflexes, power all fade eventually, so it takes a strong mind to compete once the clock moves past 30. And while some say fatherhood adds motivation, Erosa was already pretty motivated before. It’s just different now. And better.

“I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing things, so when I go to the gym, I'm in the gym; I'm not thinking about my son necessarily,” Erosa said. “When I do some things, when I go on runs and stuff, I do think about my wife and my kid a lot, but there's a lot of space in your head at that time because you're just running and being free. But when I'm in the gym, I'm learning, I'm training, and I'm focused on that. When I'm at home with my son, I'm focused on him. But when I had him and fought eight days afterwards, I learned a couple things.

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“I had more to fight for one hundred percent. It gave me more motivation to go out there and get the win. But also what it did is it took the edge off because I watched my wife give birth to my son. It was probably the most intense, incredible thing I've seen my wife do. And it made me feel like, oh, this is just a fight. Why be nervous? Why take it so serious? This is just a fight. My wife did this crazy thing just a few days ago, brought my son to this world and it just made fighting seem smaller. It made everything seem smaller. Having my son made all the rest of the problems and just everything else in life just seem that much smaller compared to what had just transpired. So it's a bit of both. When I'm getting ready to go fight, I'm going to be focused on the fight. They give me the motivation through the training camp and stuff, but when I go out there to fight, I'm not digging deep because I'm like, oh, I got my son. I need to feed him, I need money for this. I'm just focused on winning the fight and being competitive in that moment.”