When the UFC needed a short notice heavyweight to fill in on Contender Series, they called Jamal Pogues. Although he had been a light heavyweight for most of his life, Pogues jumped at the opportunity and made the most of it. After taking a decision against Paulo Renato, he signed his UFC contract.
At first, Pogues thought that he might be trying to get back down to light heavyweight in the UFC. However, after working at the Performance Institute with the right people, he’s decided to work his body ip to being a heavyweight. Although he already has his first win in the UFC, he recognizes that it’s going to take him some time to get used to his new size.
“It’s definitely going to take me a couple fights to finally feel where I’m comfortable at, but I feel confident in the direction I’m going,” Pogues explained. “That’s the thing people don’t realize. I knew the risk of going up. I also know the risks of me going down, so it was really 50-50. In the off-season, I never really got to enjoy family and friends. Automatically, after rehydrating and eatin, I’d be back up to 235lbs. It was that long cut to 205lbs.”
That first step of being up a weight class was gaining the the bulk while maintaining what he was good at. Now that he’s accomplished that, he’ll be working on other things moving forward.
“Rebecca Summers, my conditioning coach at the PI, after this next fight she said we’re going to work on leaning you out now,” he shared. “The biggest thing was putting on the size, putting on the muscle and still being able to move and be athletic – be explosive.”
That athleticism and technique will be on display this weekend when he takes on Michael Parkin. He feels those things and his pace are going to bring Parkin to the brink.
“Going with these bigger guys, I definitely have to rely a lot more on my technique from going with these smaller guys,” Pogues said. “I see me outworking this guy. I put a lot into this camp, pushing the pace, pushing my standup, pushing my wrestling… I’m going to break him.”
You can see his fight with Michael Parkin as part of the UFC London prelims this Saturday. They start at noon EST on ESPN+.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview at 31:08.
