Gregor Gillespie Issues Statement Following UFC 244 KO Loss
Over the weekend, Gregor Gillespie suffered the first defeat of his mixed martial arts (MMA) career. Gillespie took on Kevin Lee in a lightweight bout on the UFC 244 pay-per-view (PPV) main card.
Lee wound up winning the bout via first-round knockout after landing a hellacious head kick. Speaking to MMA Fighting days later, Gillespie has issued a statement commenting on the loss. He seems to be taking it well.
“You know how it goes. You get knocked out, I had a headache for a day or two, but I’m good now,” Gillespie said. “I’m in good spirits, you know my ego was hurt a little bit, obviously, someone who never loses and then they lose and you’ve gotta imagine that there’s gonna be some emotions about that, which there were. But my spirit is intact.”
As for his opponent in Lee, Gillespie had nothing but great things to say about “The Motown Phenom.”
“I asked for a step up in competition. Kevin Lee is a really good opponent,” Gillespie said. “A lot of people were saying, ‘He’s on a losing streak.’ Kevin Lee is not on a downward spiral and I knew that going in. Not for one second did I think I’m picking a guy going down, he’s not.
“You look at his last four or five fights, they’re all guys who have fought for a title or have a belt, he’s super f*cking good. I know that when you ask for better fights like that, your risk of losing goes up. That’s kind of how that goes. So that’s something I was definitely very, very aware of.
“That’s the risk when you’re fighting anyone, especially in the UFC, but when you take a fight against a guy who fought for a title at one point, your risk of getting beat—not just beat, but knocked out—goes up. That’s a risk I was willing to take.”
Before this fight, Gillespie took a 10-month layoff ahead of his return. While Gillespie will take some time off after his knockout defeat, it won’t be as long as his previous layoff.
“I’d like to get in there, I’d like to get back in, but we’re not gonna rush it,” Gillespie said. “I’m not gonna wait as long as I did this time.
“I didn’t purposely wait [10 months], it’s just that the opportunity to fight a guy I wanted to fight wasn’t there, then this came along and it was the right opponent, so that’s why the time took so long. It’s going to be sooner than it was this time.”
What do you make of Gillespie’s comments after his UFC 244 KO loss? Who would you like to see him face next?
