While it was a close fight, Matt Frevola feels he definitely won his split decision scrap with Luis Pena earlier this month at UFC Tampa.
Matt Frevola and Luis Pena had one heck of a battle just under two weeks ago at UFC Tampa. That’s putting it it mildly. The lightweight bout, part of the Fight Night event’s main card, went the distance, ending in a split decision win for ‘The Steamrolla’ Frevola.
The win put Frevola (8-1-1) on a two-fight win streak, after his UFC 230 match-up with Lando Vannata last year ended in a draw.
Cageside Press caught up with Frevola recently, to get his take on the bout.
“Good back and forth fight. I’ve been doing enough in these wars to get the win,” Frevola observed. His previous fight, with Jalin Turner, was a tough one as well. Before that, he fought to the draw with Vannata. “Going back to that Lando fight, I think I won that fight too. I won rounds one and three in that fight as well, but I guess I got 10-8’d in the second round.”
“This was another close fight,” he admitted. “I definitely won rounds one and three, he won round two. But it was a great fight.”
“I’ll fight back from anything,” Frevola exclaimed. Willing to fight to the end, “I’m glad I got to hit some adversity, and come back from that adversity and get a hard-fought win,” he added.
“I’m excited to keep training, keep getting better.” For his next fight, however, Frevola has a different sort of opponent in mind.
“I just fought these two 6″3 southpaws,” Frevola pointed out. That certainly left him at a disadvantage in terms of range, for starters. “I’m excited to fight a guy that maybe is my size. If I had some reach on them it’d be cool.”
“I’ve got a lot more that I can display too,” he added. “I got in there trying to finish every fight.” While that didn’t happen this time out, ‘The Steamrolla’ is promising a finish in the next one.
In Tampa, opponent Pena took some flak for storming out of the cage, upset with the result. “I re-watched the fight, and I definitely won that fight. It was a close fight, but I won it,” said Frevola. He accepts that one judge gave it to Pena. And with judging being what it is, it could have gone the other way. “Emotions run high in there,” he noted. “He’s definitely, storming out of the cage— I was more concerned with getting my hand raised and handling my business in front of my people. I’m sure that if he looks back, he would [like to have] handled the situation better.”
Watch our full interview with Matt Frevola above!
