Kitchener, ON — Saturday night’s alright for fighting, as the song goes. And Saturday night at BTC 21 was definitely alright for UFC alum Jesse Ronson, a Canadian veteran who at 37 just captured his second regional title in under six months.
Having picked up the Samourai MMA Super Lightweight belt back in March (and successfully defended it in May), Ronson (25-12, 1NC) added to his trophy case by stopping Ricardo Chavez via TKO in under a minute in the BTC 21 main event at The Aud in Kitchener, Ontario.
Ronson is no stranger to big finishes — he’s ended all four of his fights inside the distance since exiting the UFC last year. All in the first round, in fact. A big part of that success, he told Cageside Press after his latest victory, is forgoing the weight cut down to 155 pounds.
“To be honest, it’s not killing myself making 55 anymore. Like I said I’m confident, I’ve got my jiu-jitsu coach behind me. I’m a professor now, got my professor stripes,” said Ronson. “So I’m very confident in my jiu-jitsu. My wrestling coach who just left, we wrestle all the time. I’ve got the right guys to work with.”
“All these people out there that are killing themselves making different weight classes, going lower, that’s one of the biggest mistakes. And ever since I moved up I feel good in training camp, I feel good cutting, my recovery’s great, I feel strong. I’m not hurting. I’m able to put in the hard camps. I can train for performance instead of just training to make weight.”
If there was any surprise in his 56-second win over Ricardo Chavez to claim BTC gold, it was that his opponent wasn’t more offensively-minded.
“To be honest I thought he would be a little more aggressive. The last couple of fights I’d seen, he does try to blitz. He did catch me with a tricky little push kick to the face, which is the most disrespect, I hate getting push kicked in the face – the dirty part of your foot just right up in my face — but no, the game plan worked.”
Ronson knew he had Chavez when his fellow veteran started backing up. “Then that first body shot, the noise he made and the look on his face — better than sex,” said Ronson, making sure his wife wasn’t in the vicinity. “It’s not better than sex but man it feels good to connect like that. I could feel his guts moulding around my hand. It’s nice.”
After five training camps in ten months, Ronson plans to take a little bit of time off. “Repetitive dings and getting banged up,” he noted, have been adding up. “I just need time to let my body fully recover, and then I can get back to it.” With that in mind, “end of October, early November” is what Ronson is targeting for a return. He has multiple offers on the table, including a fight with Oktagon MMA on November 12, a potential fight with Jordan Mein with Canadian promotion PFC, and another BTC fight. Nothing is a done deal, and while Ronson doesn’t necessarily want to fight fellow Canuck Mein, he’s willing to.
“PFC offered it to me after he beat Chavez, and then some guy said ‘hey the winner of this fight gets Jordan Mein.’ And then Woody [Chavez] commented ‘that’s a great idea,'” Ronson recalled. “It’s not that I want to fight Jordan Mein, I like Jordan Mein. We fought on the bunch of the same cards.”
“It’s not like we came up together; even though I’m older than him, he’s been around longer than me. I respect the sh*t out of him and Lee Mein. But if he’s the only guy left and the only guy willing to do it, that’s the guy I’ve gotta do it [with],” Ronson continued. “I’m not running from anybody, I’ve fought everybody, I’ve never turned anybody down. If he’s the only guy that’s left, it is what it is. Because I want to fight, and this is what I do for a living and I f*cking love it. So if that’s what it is, that’s what it is. It’s not that I’m looking for him, but he’s a man.”
Of importance will be getting paid for that fight, however. “We’re not cheap guys, so hopefully they get out their f*cking wallets, because I’m not fighting Jordan Mein for f*cking pennies.”
Ronson would also love to fight in Japan some day, though on the flip side, he did enjoy fighting close to home on Saturday. That allows him to eat some “disgusting food” after the fight, for starters. And more options may arrive soon for Ronson, both at home and abroad.
Despite not having the best experience in the PFL in his first run there, Ronson is open to returning to the Professional Fighters League. After all, it’s a million dollars, on top of your show and win money throughout the season, he pointed out. Though he noted the league “kind of f*cked me” by changing the rules for opponents missing weight during his initial run, then offered him a fight in a weight class he wasn’t competing in at the time.
Bellator is also a goal for Ronson, although the promotion’s status is very much in the air. And then there’s BKFC. Ronson has a goal to hit before retirement, and that’s 50 fights across all of combat sports. Though he’ll retire from MMA after his next loss in the cage, that would not stop him from fighting in other disciplines.
“That’s exactly what I want. If I lose one more time in MMA, if it’s my next fight, that’ll give me 39 MMA fights, and then I have two pro kickboxing fights, so that puts me at 41 and then I have nine more. I’m down to do pro kickboxing, pro boxing, bare-knuckle fighting. I’ve been talking with the bare-knunkle promoter, they’re coming to Canada later this year. So I might do that, if they throw some money at me, you might see me in the BKFC cage.”
Did we just break a little news there? “I think so. I don’t know if I was allowed to say that, but he said he was coming. The guy who runs BKFC [David Feldman] said he’s coming to Canada later this year.”
Watch our full interview with BTC welterweight champ Jesse Ronson above!
