Joseph
Benavidez did some soul searching after his loss to Deiveson
Figueiredo in the UFC Fight Night 172 headliner this past
July.
It was his fourth loss in a UFC flyweight title bout since 2012,
and the division’s perpetual top contender had to make peace with
the notion that his days of challenging for championship gold were
over. It took some time, but Benavidez finally found the impetus he
needed with a matchup against the unbeaten Askar
Askarov at UFC 259 on Saturday.
“I think after my last title fight I came to the acceptance that
was probably my last title fight,” Benavidez said during a virtual
media day. “That’s kind of what I put in my mind. I had some fight
offers earlier, and I wasn’t loving it.
“Then when I finally decided this was a good timeframe I want to
fight in, and take a good break and fall back in love with training
and the sport …. What’s the next best thing? I’m still wanting to
fight the best in the world. That was the fight that motivated me
for that reason. I’ve always been here, even in between title
fights, fighting the best guys.
Askarov is currently 13-0-1 as a professional, with a split draw
against Brandon
Moreno the only blemish on his ledger. Since then, the
28-year-old Dagestani has earned back-to-back decision triumphs
over Tim
Elliott and Alexandre
Pantoja. A win against Benavidez could potentially put him next
in line for a 125-pound title shot.
Benavidez, meanwhile, isn’t allowing himself to think about the
possibility of another championship fight, and as long as Deiveson
Figueiredo is ruling the division, that’s probably the right
philosphy to have.
“Nah, I don’t think about it,” he said. “If you guys do and anyone
else does, that’s great. It took me just taking this fight to come
to an acceptance. I’m not really going back on that and putting
that whole emphasis that I’ve had my whole career…I’ve already had
questions asked about it and that’s great, but in my mind I made
the decison that was probably my last title fight.”
Despite the obvious disappointment that accompanied back-to-back
losses against Figueiredo, Benavidez said that retirement wasn’t at
the front of his mind even in the moment.
“Obviously, no matter what point you’re at in your career coming
off a loss you want to fight again immediately. I knew I didn’t
want my last fight to be my last fight. At the same time it
took some time to motivate myself again,” Benavidez said. “It was
more about, can I have fun and still enjoy this without the ghost
of the title looming like it has been my whole career? Can I do
that and be motivated and be happy and be acceptant of fighting
just to challenge myself because I love it? I’ve done that and here
comes the fight.”
At the moment, Benavidez doesn’t have a clear answer for how he’ll
want to end his fighting career. Perhaps it’s a feeling he’ll only
be able to understand when it arrives.
“The right way would obviously be something that makes ESPN Top
10…something like that,” he said. “That is the easy answer. You
don’t really know, I think. Every fight is such a different
adventure. I’ve lost fights and been proud of my performance and
just known I didn’t win. And I’ve won fights and been disappointed
that I felt like I didn’t perform and I was still disappointed even
though I won.
“The reason I lasted so long is I always think my next fight’s
gonna be good. There’s not really a perfect way to end it … it’ll
have to be a feeling that I probably can’t explain. I can’t really
put a worth or a value on how it should be.”