UFC 143 “Wonderboy” Debut “Knock out of the Night”
You couldn’t script a better ending to your UFC debut if you tried…
At UFC 143, Stephen Thompson stepped into the Octagon for the first time. Amidst more hype and attention than any fighter in the first contest of the evening has received in recent memory, the former kickboxing standout confirmed that he’s one to watch in the welterweight division with a brilliant first-round knockout victory over Dan Stittgen.
“Let me tell you, dude — it all happened just like I had it in my head. It was an experience, and I can’t wait to do it again,” said Thompson with a chuckle when I caught up with him earlier in the week following his impressive performance last weekend in Las Vegas.
The Simpsonville, South Carolina native garnered a great deal of attention heading into Fight Week based on his impressive kickboxing career. Heading into his UFC debut, Thompson was 62-0, compiling a 57-0 combined record as a professional (20-0) and amateur (37-0) kickboxing champion to go along with a 5-0 mark as a mixed martial artist.
His story was plastered on countless MMA websites, and while the first couple days went off without a hitch, the well-spoken fighter known to his students as “Mr. Stephen” admits that his nerves started kicking in later in the week.
“When I got there — Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday — I felt great. I was still in the weight-cutting process, but everything was happening pretty well. It was the best weight-cut that I’ve ever had. I got to 170 (pounds) very easily, and that’s usually not normal for me. It’s usually kind of a difficult process, but it was very easy this time.
“I wasn’t that nervous. I was still doing interviews, and going over my game plan, but the day of weigh-ins I was (on weight), and I was waiting in the back with the other fighters, and it just kind of hit me. `This is really happening; I’m about to go on stage in front of all these people and weigh in with my opponent.’
“The nerves started hitting me a little bit,” continued Thompson. “Even though it was just my first fight, there was a lot of hype on this fight, and me, and was I going to be able to deliver what the UFC is wanting from me? It kind of hit me at that time.
“I made weight, and I re-hydrated very well. The day of the event, I don’t think I said one word to anybody. I was kind of nervous, which is a good thing — it keeps your mind sharp. I started feeling more relaxed (as the day went on). That’s one of the good things about keeping positive people around you — they can calm you down, and make you feel little more comfortable leading up to the fight.” Those people included three members of the Machado Brothers such as Carlos, Roger, and John Machado who came out to support Carlos Machados brother-in-law Stephen on his debut.
One of the people who helped focus Thompson in advance of his fight was UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre.
GSP and Thompson have trained together in the past, with Thompson making occasional trips to the TriStar Gym to work with Firas Zahabi and the collection of all-stars assembled in Montreal.
“Having Georges come to the back right before I went out, and give me a little pep talk about what it’s going to be like when you step out there definitely helped me a lot. He actually walked out to the cage with me, which I thought was pretty cool.
“When I got to the cage, I felt really good, really confident, and I couldn’t hear anybody. The only person I could hear was my coach. The whole thing was just super-cool. It was weird because I was nervous all at once, but as soon as I stepped into the cage, all those nerves went away. It was like I was meant to be in that cage that night.
“That was one of the big things Georges was talking about, and why he wanted to be in my training area before I stepped out there and fought. He was like, `I’ve been doing this a long time. When you go out there, there’s going to be cameras, there’s going to be people screaming, the lights; it’s a huge show.’
“He said, `Don’t let that stop you. Just go out there and do what you do; go out there and have fun. This is your first fight — you can only do this one time. Just go out there and have fun; do what you’ve trained to do your entire life.’”
Thompson did just that.
After spending most of the round feeling out his opponent, and establishing his range, Thompson picked up on a potential opening.
“When the bell rang and they told us to fight, I knew that in the past he’s been a very aggressive opponent. I knew that my movement and my switching sides were going to throw a good wrestler off. I know in training it does, and it really worked against Dan Stittgen. He wasn’t ready for something like that, and you could tell during the fight.
“That was my whole game plan — keep switching sides, throw off his shot, and keep him on the end of my kicks and punches. I just kind of watched his reactions whenever I moved in different directions, and I knew that every time I threw a combination, he dropped his hands.
“My coach saw that too, and he said, `Show me The Money,’ which is `The Moneymaker,’ the combination that I threw. I threw it, and by golly, he dropped his hands, the leg came up, he didn’t see it, and it caught him. It definitely worked.”
After throwing a right hand that Stittgen tried to slip, Thompson threw a front-leg round kick that landed on the button, sending Stittgen crashing to the canvas in a heap. Joe Rogan shouted in excitement on the broadcast as the kick landed, just as everyone in the arena and everyone watching at home on Facebook surely did too.
It was a beautiful kick, and a tremendous way to close out a debut.
“I didn’t know that the kick was actually going to hit him until I heard the smack. When I fight, I don’t try and look for the knockout — I just let it happen, and that’s exactly what happened in that fight. I threw the leg, it connected, and I heard a big POW! He just kind of fell over, and he was out.
“Man, when I saw him fall over, I was like, `This is it! I just won this fight. Not only that, but I knocked him out with a lead-leg round kick, which could possibly land me the Knockout of the Night, which it did.’ You couldn’t ask for a better debut to be honest with you.”
After spending the rest of the night with his family and friends that made the trip to the Mandalay Bay to see him fight, Thompson was ready to head back to Simponsville to enjoy the victory with his everyone there, and get back into the gym.
“I really wanted to get home because a week in Vegas is like three weeks. I was very excited to get home because I knew all my students and friends and family from Upstate Karate — we have about 600-700 students — I knew they were watching that fight, and they wanted to see me.
All my little guys we like, `Mr. Stephen, you did an awesome job! We watched the fight!’ I just saw all the smiles on their faces, and that made me smile. I’ve got all these little guys watching, and I just want to set a good example for them. I can see it on their faces that they want to train harder than ever now. It’s very cool.”
Thompson is ready to train harder too.
“Yesterday it hit me. I won my first UFC fight, but now I’ve got to get back to the drawing board because the competition only gets better. I took two or three days off, and I’m already back in the gym trying to improve on things.
“Even though it was a spectacular knockout, we still go back and look at the fight, see what I could have done to improve or make the knockout faster. There’s always something I can always work on. It keeps me hungry. It keeps me wanting to train harder.”
Saturday morning, news broke that the UFC welterweight known as “Wonderboy” would be back in the cage in April.
Thompson will get the opportunity to fight a little closer to home this time, squaring off against Ultimate Fighter alum Matt “The Immortal” Brown (13-11) at UFC 145 in Atlanta, Georgia on April 21. Like Thompson, Brown collected a victory last weekend in Las Vegas, stopping TUF 13’s Chris Cope in the second round.
Between now and then, Thompson plans to invest the $65,000 Knockout of the Night bonus he earned into a trip to Montreal to train with the team at TriStar, and one to Dallas to work on his Brazilian jiu-jitsu with his coach and brother-in-law, Carlos Machado.
“Next time you see me, I will definitely be better,” offered Thompson in closing.
After a debut like the one he had, that’s something that should make Brown and the rest of the welterweight division a little nervous, and keep Thompson at the head of the list of fighters to watch the rest of the year.
Article written by Keyboard Kimura at
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2012/02/12/ufc-143-knockout-of-the-night-winner-stephen-wonderboy-thompson-reflects-on-his-debut-victory/
Pictures added by Zinho
