Las Vegas, NV — Coming off a Fight of the Night bonus-winning performance in a losing effort, Jordan Wright knows he’s fighting for his job at UFC Vegas 69 this Saturday.
“There’s always pressure,” Wright (12-4, 1NC) admitted Wednesday, speaking to media outlets including Cageside Press during the event’s media day.
Wright isn’t coming off just one loss but three; that Fight of the Night with Dusko Todorovic may in fact have saved his spot on the roster. “The Beverly Hills Ninja” is making the move up in weight as a result, returning to light heavyweight to shake things up. He’s set to face a former heavyweight in Zac Pauga.
“Fighting at 205 is something I did in my UFC debut, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember,” Wright explained. “I’ve been at 85 for a long time and the weight cut was starting to weigh on me. I felt like I needed to make some kind of change. I still have some weight to lose, but nothing like I had to before.”
While he didn’t get the results he was looking for in his last three bouts, Wright noted that
“I took the lessons that I took from those fights, the experiences in the cage and the things I need to work on. It’s been a pretty crazy ride, but so have the best rides that we’ve seen in life. So I ride the wave.”
In terms of whether fighting at 185 was more mentally or physically taxing, “physically taxing,” answered Wright, who added that he has a pretty strong mind when it comes to a lot of physical effort. “Coaches are always telling me to pull back if I’m going too hard in a training session. If you’re going hard for a while, you need to pull back a little bit, so I’m not stranger to actually having to push my body physically.”
At 185lbs, mentally, a lot of the focus was just on cutting the weight. 205 will resolve that, though Wright had another suggestion.
“I’m not going to lie, the UFC needs a 195lb division. I’m not saying that I’m not going to be great at 205, I think I’ll be champion at 205. But that being said, that’s the ideal weight class for guys who are like me, and there are plenty of guys that are sort of in-betweeners that can make 195, that are too big for 185 and having to fight really big guys at 205,” Wright stated. “But at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. I’m a guy who likes same day weigh-ins, to be honest. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s fighting. Just fight the guy who weighs the same as you. I don’t like these games that they play with the weight-cutting. We all know people are still using IVs and diuretics and still getting away with it.”
“At the end of the day, I’m a true martial artists, I’m a purist, I don’t really like the weight cut stuff anyway, so this works a lot better for me.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 69 media day appearance by Jordan Wright above.
