Las Vegas, NV — After a year on the sidelines, Guyana’s Carlston Harris (18-5) finally returned to action at UFC Las Vegas on Saturday, earning a decision win over short-notice replacement Jared Gooden.
The fight was a banger, but welterweight Harris was frankly just happy to get back to work at long last.
“It feels great to, after the year, come back and get the win, and show people that I can go into deep water,” he said following the fight, speaking to media outlets including Cageside Press.
As to what happened over the past 12 months, Harris laid it all out. “I got a call in December, first I was supposed to fight [Gabe] Green, this guy Green, he was a southpaw, and then he pulled out. And they offered me Ramiz [Brahimaj], and Court McGree, and then Bryan Barberena,” Harris recalled. “It’s been a lot of changes, and then I just had my newborn baby girl too, and I came to Las Vegas, and last moment my opponent pulled out of the fight too, and Jared Gooden replaced him.”
“It was a lot of changes, man, but I mean, I just wanted to fight. It’s my job, I just wanted to do my job.”
He got the job done on Saturday, though Gooden, stepping in to replace Abubakar Nurmagomedov, had missed weight for the fight by a wide margin. That wasn’t going to stop Harris from finally making his return, however.
“If he was 10 kilos over, I was going to fight him. I’m a fighter, it don’t matter. I’m a company man, I’m here to work,” stated Harris. “I’m here to show to public and give them what they want.”
Next up, well, Harris isn’t calling out any names given the trend of opponents dropping out of fights with him. “I’m not going to call out anyone because you see, seven guys pull out of fights with me. Whoever they give me, I’m ready. They give me Jon Jones, I’m ready.”
Watch the full UFC Las Vegas post-fight media appearance by Carlston Harris above.
