Fighting out of Groton, Connecticut, Billy Goff obviously had UFC 292 circled as the perfect time to make his debut. With his knee injury all healed up and chomping at the bit to get in there, the August date looked like an ideal spot for the New England fighter to get his first ‘W’. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be.
“That was extremely frustrating. I was like ‘oh, this is perfect – this is the best it could get’. I won’t have to travel and I’ll get a nice local crowd. It just didn’t work out that way,” he said acknowledging the difficulties of booking on the UFC’s end. “That’s okay. Things don’t always work the way you want to always. I hope I get a better deal and get one at MSG in the future. I know there’s one in November, so we’ll see how this one goes.”
Even though Goff kept a positive attitude about the whole thing, it was difficult to see the fight card fill up without a single local fighter on it. With the timing, it made little sense to him that he shouldn’t be on it.
“It just didn’t make sense to me, because they have no local guys [for UFC 292] – not a single local guy on the card,” Goff said. “It just didn’t make sense to me that I didn’t get a fight.”
Goff will now get a chance to make his debut just a week later and halfway across the world. He’ll fight Yusaku Kinoshita in Singapore. Instead of being the hometown guy, he recognizes that Kinoshita will probably have the crowd behind him – which is nothing he’s not familiar with.
“It’s no issue for me. I’ve done it before. When I fought Gary [Balletto Jr], it was his home crowd. When I fought [Sean] Lally and [Marty] Navis at Cage Titans, it was their home crowds and I got a lot of boos then,” he said. “Whatever happens, I’m ready for it.”
Goff’s fight with Kinoshita will take place on the ESPN+ prelims of UFC Singapore. The fights start at 5am EST this Saturday.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview at 2:22.
