Kansas City, MO – MMA is at times an unforgiving sport with many ups and downs, but some of the wildest instances of this are when fighters end up facing-off with their idols. For UFC lightweight Rafa Garcia his victory over Clay Guida at UFC Kansas City on Saturday night was a bittersweet one.
“A little bittersweet, you know, I mean it wasn’t my decision where I was like really excited to fight someone like Clay. Someone I admire. I had to prepare myself mentally for three months and be like he’s someone you look up to. He was one of my heroes when I was growing up,” Garcia told reporters including Cageside Press at his post-fight scrum.
It wasn’t just that he looked up to Guida. The long-time UFC veteran and future hall-of-famer showed a young Garcia kindness at an important point.
“When I met him for the first time at went to a Grappler’s Quest and a few fighters denied me and my brother a picture. I went up to Clay before we were competing and he gave us a hug. Was super nice to us. He took a picture with me, Cub (Swanson) and my brother, and Clay,” Garcia said. He explained that it was “kind of hard” to get into the mentality of trying to hurt the man he looked up to in a fight.
“I think I prepared myself really good (for fighting Clay). I went in there I was like ‘man this is just an opponent.’ It doesn’t matter the name, it doesn’t matter anybody. They’re just trying to take it away from me.”
Now that it’s over Garcia looked ahead to the rest of 2023. With plenty of time left in the year he set some goals for himself for the rest of the year.
“I mean get two more fights this year at least, and hopefully be in the top 15 by the end of the year,” he said.
Watch the entire post-fight scrum with Rafa Garcia above.
