Athletes
What Makes Cody Stamann A Dangerous Man?
Refocused And Winning, Veteran Bantamweight Ready To Take Over
Cody Stamann could have broken. It happened to other fighters before as they walked to the Octagon and heard “Uh Vai Morrer” from a packed house of Brazilian fans.
You know, the chant that is translated to “You’re going to die.”
Yet as Stamann strode down the aisle of Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro to face Brazil’s own Luan Lacerda, he wasn’t bothered in the slightest.
Fight By Fight Preview | UFC Fight Night: Rozenstruik vs Almeida
“Honestly, I enjoyed it,” he laughed. “I went there with the mentality that it was going to be hostile and got myself mentally prepared for it, and I was loving it. I was eating it up, honestly. But the thing was, the Brazilian people, for the most part, outside of being at the arena, were really, really nice. So it was a weird contrast.”
Stamann embraced it all, then went out and won a unanimous decision over Lacerda, his second straight victory after a three-fight losing streak put him in an uncertain and unfamiliar place in his career.
Cody Stamann Overwhelms Wineland In Under A Minute | UFC Fight Night: Kattar vs Emmett
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Cody Stamann Overwhelms Wineland In Under A Minute | UFC Fight Night: Kattar vs Emmett
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“Honestly, I went a long time and dealt with a lot of personal stuff,” said Stamann, who faces Douglas Silva de Andrade this Saturday in North Carolina. “Honestly, it wasn't too personal cause it was public. But yeah, I think I just got in a weird rut. There was stuff in my life that kind of took the wind out of my sails. And I didn't have it mentally and it showed when I fought. I thought I had it all together, but then when I fought, I think it came out and I didn't have that dog in me anymore. Now, I don't know who's going to stop me from getting what I want. At this point, I'm ready to take this whole s**t over.”
In other words, this dog is back and barking louder than ever, and while he’s had to deal with the untimely death of his brother Jacob in 2020 and the losing streak, these days, everything is clicking and he’s realized how important the mental game is at the UFC level, where everyone has the physical tools to win any given fight.
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“Every single guy in the UFC is a great athlete, is well trained, and has the ability to shut your lights off or choke you out,” said Stamann. “We can all do it all at this point and everyone's really, really good at what they do. So it's just about who can put it together on fight night. And a lot of that comes down to what kind of stress are you under? Can you actually perform? Can you perform in front of a million people? Shooting a layup in your yard is easy. Shooting free throws, you might hit eight out of 10 and then you end up on a court and there's thousands of people watching; you might not be able to get near the basket. And I think a lot of it just comes down to how mindful are you? How present are you? Do you let the moment overtake you? Do you let the pressure build up? Or do you just live in the moment? For me, it’s about mindfulness and just being present every day. Today, I'm just going to try to do the best I can to build a better tomorrow instead of, s**t, there's a fight coming up and stressing about all the little things that you can stress about throughout the day.”
That doesn’t come overnight. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all, leaving a fighter with a series of what ifs when he or she walks away, instead of a legacy. Stamann found his mojo and, at 33, is still young enough to take advantage of this knowledge. Not bad for the Michigan native, who entered the UFC with a 14-1 record in 2017, but not the experience necessary to navigate all the rocky waters at the elite level. Sure, talent can get you to a certain point, but not everywhere.
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“I've just gotten really good at regulating my mind,” said Stamann. “Every time I wander down that road of getting anxious about an upcoming event, I just come right back to the present moment. And that's been an absolute lifesaver. And I really did it by studying. The best athletes at the highest level throughout time, what is their secret? What do they have that I don’t? And I realized it was mindfulness. Michael Jordan talked about it. Tom Brady talks about it. They're not worried about shots they haven't taken yet. And my thing is that I lost and then I just put all this pressure on myself - got to perform, got to perform, got to perform. Just so much pressure on myself – I’ve got to do this for my family - and overwhelming myself with this tremendous pressure. And it hindered me. When it came down to it, it hindered my ability to actually go out there and perform because I was so in my head about everything I was doing. And it wasn't like that when I was coming up in MMA, because this was all just a dream. It was all just a fantasy. It was something that I thought I could do, but even if in my heart I believed it all was all possible, it still hadn't happened yet. And then when it did happen, it scared the s**t out of me. And I was like, this is a whole different pressure that I got to deal with. And I didn't have a grace period in fighting. I was in the Top 10 in eight months, so I literally went from fighting guys on the regional scene to fighting the best guys in the world. And the pressure just got to me. I didn't have it mentally yet. I needed to figure out how I could deal with everything else that comes with being in the UFC. And now I have.”
That makes Mr. Stamann a very dangerous man. There is the immediate business of facing the equally dangerous Silva de Andrade, and a future in a division where every fight can be Armageddon. But “The Spartan” has been through that gauntlet before, having faced the likes of current world champion Aljamain Sterling and top contenders Song Yadong and Merab Dvalishvili. He survived, and now he’s winning again.
“I think you almost need the adversity to open your eyes,” he said. “And when you're in it, it's terrible. When you're in it, it's absolutely awful. And it's hard to step out of that mindset. But it took me almost two years to really snap out of it and realize that I'm still showing up and I'm still training hard and I'm still doing all these things, but really I'm just going through the motions. I'm a shell of the man that I'm capable of being. And I don't know if I ever would've really dealt with the mental aspect as much as I was forced to, had things not gone my way. I've always had the talent and the ability and the work ethic to go wherever I wanted to in the sport, but I didn't have the mental toughness and the grit and the mindfulness that I needed to really excel at this. And I do now.”
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The “new” Stamann made his first appearance in June of last year when he earned the first performance bonus of his UFC career with a 59-second knockout of Eddie Wineland. Seven months later, he beat Lacerda for his first winning streak since 2017. That’s a long time, but he’s here now.
To stay.
“I've made the mistakes and I'm critical about making sure that I don't make these same mistakes in fight camps or in training,” Stamann said. “It's okay, what can I control today? What can I do to be a better athlete, to be a better human being? Because ultimately, it's all the same. I feel like when I'm really hitting on all cylinders, that's when everything in my life is going the direction that I want it to go. And when bad s**t happens, I deal with it. But I don't deal with it from a place of absolute terror and anxiety. I deal with it from a place of reason and try to screw my head on a little tighter than it used to be.”
UFC Fight Night: Rozenstruik vs Almeida took place live from the Spectrum Center in Charlotte on May 13, 2023. See the Final Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!
