Anthony Pettis left the UFC in 2020 (Getty)
UFC lightweight division fighter Anthony Pettis will be taking on Carlos Diego Ferreira at UFC 246. The former 155 pound Champion has not won back-to-back contests since 2014 and is coming off of an extremely deflating loss to Nate Diaz at UFC 242.
Whilst speaking to MMA Junkie, the former lightweight champion talked about the upcoming bout. “I gave myself a year off from cutting weight,” Pettis told MMA Junkie. “My choices were to take a year off completely because the ballooning (and) ballooning down was just hurting me or (I could) move up 170. I chose to go 170. I had some success, and I had some little bit of not success with the Diaz fight.”
Pettis elaborated further, saying “the training camps, the mindset, and just the energy that I had in these fights? Oh, it felt so good. The reason I went back to 155 is my walk-around weight dropped about 12 to 15 pounds, so I was ready to start cutting down again.”
Anthony also discussed exactly what went wrong at UFC 242 against Diaz, including the botched USADA test that caused a laceration in his hand. “I’m sitting in the back about to fight, and that happens,” Pettis stated. “It’s chaos. It just taught me. Wins and losses – people are going to judge me no matter what. All it takes is two or three wins for me to be right back on top. … I broke my foot. I don’t kick checks. That’s not something I do. I kicked a check from Nate Diaz, and I broke my foot. It was just a mental error, and I saw it (afterward).”
“You look at the ‘Wonderboy’ fight. I got my nose broke, but I stayed so true to my gameplan. You saw my forward pressure, hands high, low kick, low kick, low kick. In the Diaz fight, I’m switching stances, throwing haymakers. It was a mental loss.”