UFC 270’s Victor Henry On UFC Debut: “I Told Ya’ll!”

Anaheim, CA – UFC newcomer bantamweight Victory Henry made the most of his opportunity as he scored a decision win over Raoni Barcelos at UFC 270 on Saturday night. He did not mince words when it came to how he felt about the win.

“I told ya’ll. I mean a lot of media outlets counted me out but you know that’s only because….I feel personally a lot of people are UFC fans not MMA fans. They don’t watch MMA from around the world. They know what they see in the UFC and I’ve been traveling around the world fighting tough guys and I knew Raoni was going to be real tough no doubts about it,” Henry told the media at his post-fight scrum.

“But initial thoughts? I told ya’ll. I’m here to fight and I just proved it today.”

Henry (22-5) defeated Barcelos (16-3) who owns four wins in the UFC. Most seemed to pick Barcelos to win the fight over Henry but it’s not something Victor took personally into the cage.

“The only chip i’ve got on my shoulder if I was born kind of ugly. I can’t help that, but I realize that my road is not going to be the same as everybody else’s. I knew that I had to pretty much work twice as hard. I don’t have a super sad story. All I have is hard work that I got from my dad. I’m not very tall, not very fast, not very gifted. So what am I going to do? I’ve got to work twice as hard.”

It was rumored that Henry was supposed to make his UFC debut earlier in the year but the bantamweight shot that down quickly and explained why he wanted the Barcelos fight regardless of when it happened.

“As far as being scheduled this year, there was no validity to that, somebody ran with a rumor. The only time it was supposed to happen was in late December which, unfortunately, I tested positive for COVID. I was asymptomatic, as soon as I got my negative test back from that, I went back to training. When I was offered this fight again on this day I said absolutely, let’s go for it. Like I said I’m not the youngest guy. I have a hard road to run. I’m not here just to take the easier fights. I wanted this fight.”

“They were telling me that his visa is coming up, he might not be able to fight later on. I was really upset the first time it got cancelled because of course I wanted to fight him. It’s not just I wanted to fight in the UFC, I wanted to fight HIM.”

Watch the full UFC 270 post-fight press conference with Victor Henry above. More coverage from the event can be found below.