UFC BJJ
Mason Fowler | Nowhere To Run
The Light Heavyweight King Of The UFC BJJ Bowl Plans On Hunting Down Another Victory As He Looks To Avenge A Prior Loss At UFC BJJ 6.
Mason Fowler heads into UFC BJJ 6 as the reigning, defending UFC BJJ light heavyweight champion. But in his eyes, he was the champion long before then.
Fowler had built significant momentum competing at UFC Fight Pass Invitational and Submission Underground events before the first opportunity to compete for a UFC belt finally arrived. It meant that, when he stepped into the Bowl at UFC BJJ 2, he already felt like he was on top of the world.
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“I’m glad that I was able to capture the light heavyweight title, because I personally have already felt like I was the light heavyweight champion of this organization,” he explained. “I feel like I should have had a title a title a long time ago. I had a lot of really big wins, a lot of top-ranked guys, some of them ranked as high as number one in the world. And so I've felt like a champion. And it just felt really good to finally be able to say that I was the champion of UFC BJJ.”
While he has been consistently delivering winning performances on the mats, Fowler did face a new challenge in UFC BJJ in the form of the Bowl itself. The competition area, which features tapered, sloped sides, is designed to keep the action moving, even when the athletes approach the outer reaches of the matted area.
It’s something that Fowler said has actually helped his game, with the Bowl helping ensure that opponents can’t escape him quite so easily.
“I personally enjoy the Bowl much more,” he explained. “One problem that I've always had is with my style. I have a good wrestling base, and a lot of the jiu-jitsu guys, they'll just circle around the edge, and you'll try to shoot on them, and they'll be like, 10 feet out of bounds by the time you're getting in on their legs, and it's very frustrating… So the fact that if you're the person that's putting your forehead to forehead, and you're pushing forward, you're going to get rewarded for it, because the person's not going to be able to run away.
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“I feel like having the (sloped) walls is definitely great for my style, and I haven't been able to really utilize the edges in any fun type of ways yet. But maybe in this match, we'll see a little flying triangle off the edge, or something like that.”
Fowler will put his title on the line against old adversary Pedro Machado, who defeated him in the finals of the brown belt open class at the 2021 IBJJF World Championships. His was the first name that Fowler mentioned when he listed a trio of possible opponents he wanted to face following his title win at UFC BJJ 2.
“It was something that was always in the back of my mind,” explained Fowler of his callout. “It's not like the day that he beat me I was trying to get a rematch constantly. It was something that was in the back of my mind. I wasn't giving it too much thought until I saw him competing on UFC BJJ 1, and he was competing in my weight class. So, as soon as I saw that, I knew that was going to be a match that I was going to petition for. And luckily, I got it.”
The key motivator behind the callout was the manner in which he lost out to Machado at the 2021 IBJJF Worlds. One mistake led to a submission defeat, and now, almost five years on, Fowler is keen to put things right in the rematch.
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“The main thing was, I made a big tactical error,” he explained. “Essentially, I pulled guard in a way that he was able to establish an underhook right away. He turned that under hook into an armbar. He finished the armbar. So, an easy way to not have that sequence happen again, is to not pull guard.
“I think definitely all areas of my game have evolved since the last time I competed against Pedro. We were brown belts at that time, and I've went on to win a lot of big tournaments and big matches at the black belt level since then, but definitely one part of my game is my wrestling – that's been constantly evolving over the past four years, and that's something that I didn't even try to use in the first match. So that's something I'm looking to implement a lot more in this match.”
If he avenges his 2021 loss to Machado on Thursday night, he plans to call for one of the other two men he mentioned in that intial callout: Devhonte Johnson and Lucas Barbosa.
“I had already been offered those two names from the UFC, so I know that it's matches that they want to put on, as well,” Fowler said. “I think it should be pretty easy to get those three done, kind of back-to-back-to-back. After that, we'll see who's ranked in the top 10 at 205.”
To get that plan in motion, he first has to defeat Machado at UFC BJJ 6, and while the aim of the game is to win and retain his title, he’s not placing any added pressure on his shoulders as a result of him being champion. Instead, he’s focusing on his performance, and making sure he leaves everything in the Bowl on Thursday night.
“Like I said, I felt like I was the champion for a long time. So, to me, it doesn't make any difference. It's just another match,” he said. “To me, either way, if I win, I'm bringing the belt home, so it's the same thing.
“All that I want is to just give my personal best – that's it, so if that means I get a fast submission, that's great. If it means we have a three-round, crazy match that's back and forth, that's great. If it's an exciting match, that's great. If it's a boring match, that's great. I want to just give my best performance, whether I win or lose. If I lock in and I give my best performance, I'll be happy.”
