Las Vegas, NV — One of the biggest MMA upsets in recent memory came when little-known (to that point) Christian Echols put away NCAA wrestling champ Pat Downey with an uppercut inside of a round at Bellator 289.
Despite coming in December 2022, the uppercut KO was among those nominated for Upset of the Year at the 15th Annual World MMA Awards last month. And while Echols didn’t win, he reflected on the fight and his memories of it speaking to Cageside Press on the red carpet.
When it comes to what stands out most, “I would say the adversity I faced,” said Echols. “That was the first fight I ever came into where I was like ‘I know this guy has more accolades than me, he has everything, it’s all on the table. He’s supposed to beat me.’ It was the first time I was really the underdog.”
“When he took me down, he got on top, set up with that choke, I started panicking, I was like ‘oh he’s really what they say he is.’ But I’ve got that thing inside of me too, that night I proved to myself like ‘I belong here, this guy’s not going to do this to me.’ When I got back to the feet, started putting the hands on him, it was the wildest moment of my life. It felt like a movie, it was insane.”
Ahead of the fight, Echols might have had just a little doubt, hoping he’d get lucky in the bout. “Yeah man,” he stated. “Honestly before the fight, my big thing with fighting is, I tell people all the time ‘the only way we can know is if we find out.’ With the fight game, anybody can be beat on any given night. So it’s like, you’ve just got to find out. That’s what I said to my coach, I was like ‘well we’re going to damn find out who’s really better when we get in there.'”
“I proved out I’ve got the dog in me, and that was a big thing to myself. I took that, and I’ve taken on a four-fight win streak. I took a fall in my last one, but I’m going to come back strong and really show everybody that I’m going to the UFC soon.”
Watch our full interview with Christian Echols above.
