Faced with an opponent who had decimated all opposition in his
path, Stephen
Thompson made it look easy on Saturday night.
“Wonderboy” was in prime form in the UFC Fight Night 183 headliner,
as he outstruck Geoff Neal
for the better part of five rounds in a unanimous decision victory
at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. As a result, Thompson re-established
himself as one of the welterweight division’s top contenders. It
wasn’t all easy, however, because the South Carolina native
suffered an apparent knee injury late in the fight which hindered
his trademark movement.
“After the fourth round, I thought it was my kneecap. I felt this
stiffness in my right leg. I looked down and saw this ball and
thought it was my kneecap,” Thompson explained. “I tried to bend my
knee and it ended up being muscle. Hopefully it’s not too bad and I
don’t have to have surgery.”
A veteran of two title bouts and six 25-minute fights in the UFC
overall, Thompson let experience take over down the stretch.
Ultimately, he had more than enough left in the tank to hold off a
hard-charging Neal in the championship frames.
“In the fight game, you’re going to have your ups and downs—your
injuries. But you can hurt later and that’s what your train for,”
Thompson said. “I’ve been fighting since I was 15 years old. All
the fighters out here, we go through a conditioning process. You
take your bumps and bruises and then during the fight ignore that.
I wasn’t able to move the angles I wanted to, so I had to learn on
the fly and adapt. That’s it. He’s a pressure fighter. All I had to
do was sit down, grit my teeth and throw.”
Thompson was nonetheless able to confound his opponent with his
speed and movement througout the bout, and when all was said and
done, “Wonderboy” had landed 171 significant strikes — twice as
many as Neal and the eighth most in UFC welterweight history.
Thompson kept his opponent off balance with punching combinations,
a variety of kicks and solid body work, but Neal rarely showed
signs of being hurt during the 25-minute encounter.
“I’m used to adversity being out there in the Octagon. In the fight
with Vicente
Luque, I ended up breaking both my hands. This time I ended up
hurting my right knee, but you have to put that in the back of your
head, forget about it and do what you do. I felt great,” Thompson
said. “Geoff Neal is
super tough. Every time I hit him, he felt like a rock. He just
kept coming forward. I hit him with a full on roundhouse kick to
the face, to the dome-piece, and he just kept on coming. I’m very
happy with my performance, even with the injuries. I’m feeling
great.”
In many instances, Thompson’s style frustrates his opponents. The
soon-to-be 38-year-old tipped his cap to Neal for staying the
course.
“He’s got a good boxing base. He’s very good at staying in
positions. I know he was getting frustrated out there in the
beginning of the rounds, but he just wouldn’t come out of
position,” Thompson said. “Most guys I frustrate end up doing
things they normally wouldn’t do—and that’s when I got you. He
didn’t. He just kept good position, kept coming forward and I was
very impressed with that. We had a lot of respect out there.”
On the heels of his latest triumph, Thompson has designs on another
championship run in the UFC’s welterweight division. First, he’d
like to run it back against Jorge
Masvidal, who he defeated in their initial meeting at UFC
217.
“With good wins over Geoff Neal
and Vicente
Luque, they’ve got to give me someone in the top five. I’m
still here ranked No. 5,” he said. “Jorge
Masvidal would be an awesome fight, because we fought each
other before. We’ll see what happens.”