Tom
Nolan revealed that his UFC
Fight Night 241 win over Victor
Martinez was a really crucial one.
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Nolan earned his
UFC contract with a knockout win over Bodgan Grad on
Dana White’s Contender Series last year — his sixth straight
victory. The then undefeated prospect was massive favorite going
into his UFC debut against Nikolas
Motta this past February. However, “Big Train” went on to
suffer his first career loss via first-round TKO.
Nolan admits that he had let some of the hype around him get to his
head going into his UFC debut, and he felt pressure to make quick
work of his opponent in dominant fashion.
“Different pressure to last time,” Nolan said in a post-fight media scrum. “Last time the pressure
was, ‘Oh you’ve gotta finish this guy in 10 seconds, you’re so much
better, so much better.’ And to be honest, I’ve never been dropped,
I’ve never been knocked out, I’ve never even really been hurt, I’ve
never been cut, nothing. So at my own fault, I kind of bought into
that hype a little bit. Went in there thinking, ‘You know what, I
should be able to do this very quickly.’ And I learned a valuable
lesson.”
Nolan bounced back with a TKO win against Martinez, finishing his
foe with a knee to the body and follow-up punches on Saturday
night. His foiled UFC debut had vastly changed things for Nolan
going into his sophomore promotional outing. While Nolan was once
again a heavy betting favorite, the Australian was more concerned
about saving his job this time. Having expected a performance bonus
and being left with only show money for his UFC debut, Nolan
revealed that he would be back to working regular jobs if he didn’t
get a win against Martinez.
“Going in the pressure was different [this time],” he said. “I
didn’t really care about the odds or what people were saying.
Everyone was saying the same stuff this time: ‘Oh you gonna beat
this guy, easy first round knockout, easy easy easy.’ I’m watching
his fights and he’s knocking people out all the time. He’s got
eight knockouts. It’s never gonna be an easy fight. So the pressure
for me was more. I’m only young, I’ve only got a little bit of
money. I expected to win my last one and get a bonus and instead I
lost, so now I get no money. Now I’ve got to live off that til my
next fight. So if I had a loss tonight, I’m back working somewhere
and living the life that I’m not meant to be living. So the
pressure was really internal this time and I dealt well with it.”