Derek Brunson Explains How He Avoided Disaster At UFC Ottawa
Derek Brunson explains how he avoided knocking himself out while competing at the UFC Ottawa event.
This was an important fight as he had dropped his two latest outings inside of the Octagon. He lost to Ronaldo Souza in January 2018 and Israel Adesanya at UFC 230 by TKO later that year.
However, he was able to turn it out with an impressive win in his latest fight. Brunson scored a unanimous decision over Elias Theodorou at UFC Ottawa (also known as UFC on ESPN+9) Saturday night (May 4, 2019) at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on ESPN+.
Following the fight, while talking with the media, Brunson explained how he had to avoid knocking himself out in this fight when going for a power slam. It was a similar situation from last June when Jarred Brooks knocked himself unconscious while trying to slam Jose Torres.
“That was my exact thought,” Brunson said (H/T to MMAFighting). “I picked him up, I locked my hands, I was like, oh, that kid—I think it was Jarred Brooks or something like that—he went, he swung, he dunked him and knocked himself out. I was like, if I knock myself out, it’s gonna be real bad. So I swung his legs and I swam back over and I got north-south position.
“But yeah, I wanted to make sure I didn’t knock myself out. That wouldn’t look good. I would have made ‘Sportscenter Not Top 10’ or whatever. That would have been bad.”
