UFC featherweight Charles Rosa is looking to put his string of bad luck behind him — and he used UFC 3 to help keep his sanity during his down time.
As the saying goes, it’s better to have bad luck than no luck at all. Whether or not you agree, perhaps that little bit of wisdom shouldn’t be applied to combat sports at all. For whatever reason, some fighters tend to have better luck than others when it comes to opponents pulling out of fights, and they themselves having to do the same. Enter UFC featherweight Charles Rosa. ‘Boston Strong’ is ready to put his recent string of bad luck behind him, post-haste.
Cageside Press had a chance to speak with the proud Bostonian about getting through his recent rough patch, the new UFC 3 video game, and more.
Keeping a positive mental outlook in MMA in not an option, it’s mandatory. This is something that Rosa is very familiar with. “Yea, I was supposed to fight [Mizuto] Hirota in Japan, but he had weight issues. Luckily the UFC took care of me, its not cheap flying your family out to Japan.”
Rosa added, “Its not just about the money, I was bummed. I came all the way to Japan, I wanted that fight. Even when he was five pounds over [weight] I still said yes.”
The string of bad luck didn’t stop there, “The UFC was going to give me a quick turnaround [fight],” said Rosa. “But I was having some muscle atrophy problems in my upper body, turned out I had some neck issues I had to get taken care of, so there’s two months.”
All bad things come in threes. “Then I had to pull out of my fight with [Dan] Ige,” Rosa explained. “I was upset, this was going to be the third time I won in Boston, at the Garden. That was the first time I ever had to pull out of a fight because of an injury.”
Again, a positive mental outlook goes along way. That run of bad luck may have broken lesser fighters. How did Rosa manage to get through the tough times? “I actually played a lot of UFC 3,” Rosa half-joked.
“That’s something that kept me sane, I’m a new character in the new UFC game that just came out February 2, so when I was laid up with the injury and I could only do real light work outs I got mine in. It’s kind of like training your mind for fighting,” Rosa said.
Whether he is training his mind or training his body, ‘Boston Strong’ is back and he is ready to compete, but does he have an opponent in mind? “I’d love another fight with [Shane] Burgos,” Rosa said quickly.
“I got the judge’s score cards after that fight. I was winning the first two rounds, and probably the third [round] too,” said Rosa. He added that “I got caught in the third [round], I was getting back to my feet, and then the ref jumps in and the fight is over. I was unbelievably upset.”
“That fight was in New York, I still have my conspiracy theories,” Rosa added.
Burgos has turned out to be a pretty good fighter in his own right, so a rematch between these two would be welcome to any fan of the sport no doubt.
While it’s not clear what the immediate future holds for ‘Boston Strong’, the run of bad luck is in his past, and he is ready to go now. A healthy and ready to go Charles Rosa is a scary fighter. Just ask any UFC 3 video gamer!
