Flyweight Christian Natividad is happy to be back.
It has been a long 13 months for Natividad. The Hawaiian fighter, who fights out of Arizona, had a great 2021 and had a bunch of momentum entering this year. However, a couple of nagging injuries, personal problems (including having his house flooded), and just not being offered a fight absolutely halted his momentum.
“Honestly, I guess you could say this is God’s plan or whatever it is. You don’t understand how God works sometimes, and I mean, it’s been a long way off, but honestly, it’s been a long time coming,” Natividad told Cageside Press in an exclusive interview.
“It definitely was very frustrating having my first four professional fights within a year and then having to take a full year off. I felt like I was kind of finding a good flow. But honestly, I appreciate the time off because when you’re in camp, and you’re fighting back to back, you can only progress so much because, during fight camp, you’re sharpening the tools. When you’re out of camp, that’s when you really learn and kind of expand your techniques and stuff like that. So, having this long layoff really gave me an opportunity to grow.”
Natividad returns to action against Israel Galvan at LFA 144, and he is very, very happy with the match-up. He is planning on getting back to his finishing ways, having earned stoppages in his first two pro fights.
“I’m excited. People count down the days, I’m counting down the minutes. I’m so excited. So excited…I love the match-up. I’ve never found anyone shorter than me, and I believe he might be an inch, maybe two inches shorter than me, so this is gonna be something new. But yeah, he’s tough, man. He’s tough,” Natividad said. “My past few fights have been decisions. I’m hoping to get back onto that knockout win streak. So I’m hoping to knock this guy out.”
Watch the rest of our interview with Christian Natividad above. Natividad vs. Galvan goes down this Friday at LFA 144, exclusively on UFC Fight Pass.
