Athletes
Michael Chiesa: 'My Love For The Sport Never Faded'
36-Year-Old Michael Chiesa Sees His Career Lasting Way Beyond Saturday's Matchup With Max Griffin At UFC 310: Pantoja vs Asakura
Michael Chiesa was on a three-fight losing streak. Hey, these things happen in MMA, especially when you’re fighting the trio of Vicente Luque, Sean Brady and Kevin Holland. But when you’re 36 years old, there are often more questions than answers.
So Chiesa had a plan, and it was all going to ride on his August fight with Tony Ferguson and not if he won, but how he won.
“I told my wife, ‘If I have to go out there and really fight Tony Ferguson really hard for three rounds, there's probably a good chance it's my last fight. If I got to go out there and go tooth and nail, blood and guts to get a win, it might be time to be done.’ So, essentially, I was like, the longer this fight goes, it's really going to dictate how much longer I compete for.”
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The fight with Ferguson lasted less than four minutes. It was time for another chat with his wife Kelsi.
“The first thing my wife says to me is, ‘You're not done fighting anytime soon, are you? ‘And I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ So here I am, getting ready to fight Max Griffin and I feel good. I just feel between the conversations I had with my team, my family, and my uncle Joe, who's a sports psychologist who played a big role in me getting my mind to where I'm at right now, where I feel unshackled from my mental woes that have held me back from competing at my best.”
This Saturday’s fight with Griffin may not be perceived as important as the Ferguson bout, but for a competitor like Chiesa, every fight has always been the most important fight, and he’s prepared accordingly, with the Washington State product “marinating in my soreness” in the lead-up to the UFC 310 bout at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as Chiesa loves the sport, and everything associated with it.
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“My love for the sport never faded,” he said. “I was just battling a lot of self-doubt because in all those three fights that I lost, never did I feel like I was getting older, that Father Time was catching up with me. I had great training camps, I had great partners and I performed well, particularly in the Luque and the Holland fights. I just beat myself mentally, and I didn't put too much stock into the Luque fight. ‘Hey, it's an off night. Go out there, have a good fight against Sean Brady. Things don't go my way. But it was the Kevin Holland fight that I really just mentally fell apart at the most important time, which was fight night. And so I spent a lot of time in the days after that and the months after that, just really questioning things. It's not a matter of if I'm physically fit to still fight, but have I lost my edge mentally? And so, there were a lot of questions surrounding that.
“Do I still have it mentally?” Chiesa continues. “I know I have it physically. My love is still there. Physically, I'm still able to compete with these guys in the gym, but if I can't get my mind right on fight night, I'm just putting myself in harm's way more than I already am.”
Michael Chiesa | Top Finishes
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Michael Chiesa | Top Finishes
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So after some long conversations with his inner circle, the Ferguson fight was going to determine hie future, and he put everything together with his sharpest performance in years against a former interim lightweight champion. He’s carried those good vibes into this training camp. As for retirement, it’s not on the radar.
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“I'll be honest with you,” he said. “I just don't see the end being near anytime soon. I just feel too good. I'm sharp. Everything's coming together. And I know a lot of aging fighters kind of say the same thing, but I’ve just got to be honest; I feel really good. I'm performing very well in the gym. My reaction time is good. And, like I said, I just feel liberated from the mental shackles I've cuffed myself to for the last few years. And it feels good to just compete, I’m just feeling a lot more free. I feel happy. I'm excited to compete. I'm excited to put myself in harm's way and do whatever I have to do to get the win. It's just a good feeling that I feel right now. And even if things don't go my way on December 7th, I don't think it's going to change any of that. As a matter of fact, I know it's not because it's not about winning, losing, it's just about how I feel, and I just feel good.”
Those are all good signs, and necessary ones, as Griffin shows up to fight every time, win, lose or draw. It’s the kind of scrap Chiesa has loved being a part of, and he embraces that kind of 15-minute fight, even though he has been well-preserved after a dozen years on the UFC roster. Add in his level of experience, the man who turns 37 on fight night may be in for a new charge at the 170-pound belt.
“I feel like the pieces are really coming together in terms of experience and wisdom and being a veteran while still having some youth on my side,” he said. “It's like a perfect storm where, yeah, I turn 37 the night of my fight, but historically I haven't had a lot of major injuries. I haven't had major surgeries. I've had back issues, but never had to get them surgically handled. My body's very much intact. My brain is very much intact. I haven't taken too many hard shots. I'm a very cerebral fighter, and it's a blessing to have my body and my brain be where it's at. At this stage in my career, because I've been in the UFC since 2012, and I've been doing this for almost 17 years, you would think I would've sustained a lot more damage along the way, but my body still feels very fresh, and I've learned so much over the course of my career that now I'm really honing in on how to train, how to prepare, how to listen to my body, and how to be confident enough to take a day off.”
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That last part is something Chiesa picked up from fellow analyst Michael Bisping, and the late-career success of the former middleweight champ and others in recent years has him eager to see what the next chapter looks like.
“Fine tuning everything is what's really going to lead to me having a lot of success on this next run, because I do have a lot of tread left on the tires,” said Chiesa. “My aspirations have not changed, and the way that I fight historically ages very well. When you look at guys like Demian Maia, Glover Teixeira, those are guys I look up to a lot because of the success they had late in their career. I really feel like I can make another run. I feel better now, and I'm performing better now in the gym than I was when I was on a four-fight win streak and knocking on the door to fight Kamaru Usman. I feel better now and I'm performing better now. So now it's just about executing at the times it matters most, which is when it comes to competition.”
UFC 310: Pantoja vs Asakura took place live from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 7, 2024. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!
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