Anthony Pettis Opens Up About Losing The Belt

After breaking his orbital bone and sustaining a concussion when Rafael dos Anjos dealt him a thorough five-round beating in the main event of March 14’s UFC 185 pay-per-view (PPV) from Dallas, Texas, former UFC lightweight champion Anthony “Showtime” Pettis stayed in Dallas for three extra days to avoid having his young daughter see him so beat up.

Today (Mon., March 23, 2015) Pettis gave his first interview since the devastating defeat, appearing on The MMA Hour to discuss the brutal fight with show host Ariel Helwani. He wouldn’t take anything away from dos Anjos’ masterful performance, noting that while a first round shot rendered him blind in one eye, “RDA” still put together a dominant showing.

“He caught me with that big left. The first punch he hit me with, I couldn’t see. I had triple vision. It was a great punch. He got me right in the eyeball.

“There were a lot of things that factored into that performance. I mean, having one eye doesn’t stop the fact that I didn’t stop any of his takedowns. It didn’t stop the fact of me taking the wrong angles.”

Brutally honest in his self-assessment from the defeat, “Showtime” apparently knows all of the things that he did wrong in Dallas. But even though he’s willing to give dos Anjos full credit, he isn’t willing to admit that “RDA” beat the best version of him.

“Yeah, I’m definitely upset with myself,” Pettis said. I’m definitely down about losing my belt, but that wasn’t the best Anthony Pettis. He didn’t go out there and demolish my best performance. Then [I’d be] like yeah I need to figure out why I suck at what I do. I just didn’t put it together. It just wasn’t my night.

“I had a really crappy performance. I don’t know what happened. My timing was off. I didn’t have any strength out there. I felt weak. And it was just like something went wrong, so I gotta figure it out and we gotta fix it. I never felt that weak in a fight and it was the wrong night to feel like that.”

Indeed it was, and Pettis certainly didn’t seem himself in the cage that night. Part of the reason may have been the fact that he was forced to watch his younger brother Sergio get knocked out in a fight he was previously winning, which lead to the elder Pettis brother stating he’d prefer not to fight on the same card as his sibling going forward.

He wouldn’t blame the loss on Sergio’s, however, believing the exchange that lead to his brother’s demise was simply just an unfortunate part of the fight game.

“I don’t think it really messed me up mentally,” he said. “I mean, it sucks to see him lose like that, to get knocked out. He had a great first round. Second round, he just got caught. It happens. Exchanging hooks, I’ve seen it a million times in combat sports.”

“Showtime” said the beating he accrued was just one big blur that lead him to disregard the advice of his world-class cornermen Duke Roufus and Ben Askren, something he would never normally do in a fight.

“The whole entire thing was a blur,” Pettis said. “Even in between rounds, it was a blur. I didn’t take the advice Duke was giving me. Ben was saying some good things, I wasn’t listening to Ben. It was one of them nights.”

With the shocking loss in the rearview mirror, Pettis will now move on to re-focus and re-tool his game. He plans on getting back into the cage sooner than later in order to get back to a title shot as soon as possible.

There’s no denying “Showtime’s” devastating talent, but he has some obvious holes in his game to improve on; especially in the grinding top rungs of the lightweight division.

His back may be against the wall, and he may have even gotten exposed to some degree, but don’t count out “Showtime” just yet.

Photo Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports