Commerce, CA — 17 seconds was all it took for Eugene Correa to claim victory at A1 Combat 6 over the weekend, a show promoted by none other than UFC legend Urijah Faber.
That’s certainly a good way for Correa (3-2) to make an impression. He’s now won three straight, after dropping his first two as a pro. And Saturday’s scrap with David Douglas was electric as long as it lasted.
“That’s what MMA fights are all about. We’re not here to fake to the crowd, we’re not here to go to points and mess around and dance around and waste people’s money, man. We’re real fighters, and I feel like we deserve to get paid a lot more,” Correa told Cageside Press following the win. “I’m hoping everything changes in the future with MMA and we get treated like humans, like golfers, football players, NBA all-stars, and whatnot, the list goes on with sports who make a lot more than we do in the smaller organizations.”
Correa opened things up with a head kick in the bout, and said that if the kick had landed, “it was just going to be a finish, man, and try to go with my striking again.” It didn’t land, and instead Correa wound up on the ground due to a slip, but a heel hook was there for him. Regardless, the win was the culmination of a busy training camp. “I made a lot of changes this camp, and not because I wanted to but because the universe asked me to,” he told us. Correa actually got back together with his high school coach, while focusing on his Muay Thai and boxing in particular.
As for the sub, it was “muscle memory,” said Correa. And believe it or not, he trained in jiu-jitsu and striking the day of the fight, forty minutes each. “Even though it wasn’t recommended, I know a lot of online articles tell you ‘oh you gotta rest the day of, don’t even drill, just drill before the fight, that’s it,’ something told me just be disciplined, like the fight’s not there, and I just gotta train. The same thing I reviewed in the morning, I applied it today. It was just like muscle memory, man.”
Watch our full interview with A1 Combat 6 winner Eugene Correa above.
