Contender Series winner Jonathan Pearce, stuck with a car with windows that won’t even roll down, is fighting to get paid, and promises more performances like Tuesday once he hits the UFC.
Las Vegas — Of the five contract winners on the third week of this season of Dana White’s Contender Series, Jonathan Pearce might be the most pragmatic. He certainly seems like a straight shooter, both in the cage — winning his lightweight scrap with Jacob Rosales via third round TKO — and outside of it.
“I feel like I got in a fist fight,” he replied when asked about how he felt about the big win following the bout, “but I’m not satisfied with just tonight. There’s going to be many more for me. If you like what you saw tonight, give me me a little bit more time and a full camp.”
“I want to be world champ, I want to go out and set the bar,” he then told media members, Cageside Press included.
Reflecting on the win, Pearce said that “I think I went out there and put everything out there. He got me in that arm-bar, tore my arm a little, but I wasn’t going to stop. I was on a mission, a seek and destroy mission, and I wasn’t going to stop until I got that contract.”
Mission accomplished. After the fight, waiting for the contract winners to be announced, Pearce was confident that his name would be among them.
“I knew. I knew he was a tough guy but I didn’t think he was going to take that much. But I knew once I got the finish, and I’d watched the other series, that I was going to get the contract after my performance tonight,” he explained.”
The win means entry into the UFC’s stacked 155lb division. As for a debut opponent, “I don’t care,” said Pearce. “I don’t care who they are, shape, size, color. I’m JSP. At the end of the day, they’ve got to fight me. 10lbs heavy, 10lbs less, if they don’t pass the drug test, I don’t really care. I came here to fight, and get paid to do it.”
You got a taste of that Tuesday. For all the talk of showing something special and making sure to finish on the Contender Series, ‘JSP’ just went out and fought like himself. “I didn’t change anything about my game at all. That’s how I fight, every single time.”
It doesn’t stop there. “I’m not satisfied with just this one fight,” he added. “The windows in my car don’t even roll up. I’m ready to get this next fight, and actually start getting paid, and get that $50,000 bonus.”
For more from Dana White’s Contender Series 2019 Week 3 winner Jonathan Pearce, watch the full post-fight press scrum above!
