You can forgive Doo Ho Choi
if he got a little bit caught up in the moment.
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Shortly after he scored a second-round TKO of Bill Algeo at
UFC
on ESPN 60, Doo Ho Choi
gave an emotional post-fight interview to Daniel
Cormier in the Octagon on Saturday night.
“This win was a long time coming, and I’ve let a lot of people
down. It’s been a while,” Choi said. “But I kept believing in
myself. I knew I could do it tonight. I wanted to prove it to
people who still believe in me.”
It was Choi’s first promotional triumph since a first-round
knockout of Thiago
Tavares at “The Ultimate Fighter 23” finale in July 2016. Once
regarded as a prospect to watch, “The Korean Superboy” went winless
in his next four bouts, though one of those was an all-time classic
against Cub Swanson
that was eventually inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.
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During a post-fight media scrum, Choi explained what was going
through his head in the immediate aftermath of his victory over
Algeo.
“I got emotional because this win was a long time coming,” Choi
said through a translator (video via MMAjunkie.com). “It’s been a while. It’s been a while
since I won, and the last time it didn’t go very well and I heard
all the haters, all the people that said I’m done and I can’t do it
anymore. It started to affect me. I started to doubt myself a
little bit.
“I was thinking, ‘Is this really it? Am I really done?’ I kept
faith in myself and I had to prove it to myself, and I proved it to
myself tonight, so that’s why I’m emotional.”
Now 33 years old, Choi was able to maintain belief in his abilities
through all the adversity.
“I know this is the one thing that I’m good at,” Choi said. “If I
try my best and leave it all out there and if it doesn’t go my way,
then I can accept that, maybe I don’t have it. I kept believing in
myself and kept trying and I got it done.”