At the start of his training camp for UFC Milwaukee, Mike Rodriguez put perhaps a little too much pressure on himself. When he learned to relax, however, he found his groove, which culminated in his first UFC win on Saturday night.
Milwaukee, WI — For a fighter named “Slow,” Mike Rodriguez is awfully fast. He picked up a first round knockout finish of Adam Milstead at UFC Milwaukee (UFC on FOX 31) on Saturday, thanks to a well-placed knee. The blow connected solidly to the body, sending Milstead crumpling to the canvas. Milstead, a former heavyweight, retired after the fight. Rodriguez, meanwhile, moves forward in the light heavyweight division.
And now, perhaps, the pressure is off. “It’s a good feeling. Should have had it back in Brooklyn, but you know, things happen,” he told reporters including Cageside Press following the fight on Saturday. Brooklyn, of course, was a reference to his debut at UFC 223, which did not go according to plan. Still, “I got it done today,” he said.
Which has left Rodriguez feeling “like a thousand bucks right now. More than a thousand bucks.”
The fighter and his team certainly did their homework ahead of UFC on FOX 31, as UFC Milwaukee is otherwise known. “We knew that he doesn’t normally move. He doesn’t have any side movement or anything, he just comes one way. So we wanted to keep everything straight down the line, just to tag him.” That approach paid off. “The knee was perfect, as soon as he got off the fence. That’s something we worked on.”
Giving credit to his vanquished foe, Rodriguez told the media that “he is a tough dude. He also came down from heavyweight, swings wild. We knew he was going to have all that. There was some complications, but we ended up getting it done.”
‘Slow’ also admitted that he “put pressure on myself a little bit at the beginning of camp, because I was coming off a loss and I really wanted to win.” It’s something that “took a little toll on me for a little bit. I just had to chillax myself, slow things down, sixty minutes an hour, just chill out, chill out. Then I was able to get my groove. But at the beginning of camp, it was stressful.”
Luckily, the remainder of camp, and the fight itself, went much smoother. Rodriguez took little damage, and suggested that he’d love to return as soon as January.
Watch the full UFC Milwaukee post-fight press scrum with Mike Rodriguez above!
