Westin Wilson is different from most fighters in that fighting isn’t what he makes the bulk of his income doing. Wilson has a good paying job on the side owning his own business and instead uses MMA as a means to prove something to himself. So it may seem surprising to some that when he hit a rough patch on the regional scene a handful of years ago, that he didn’t walk away from the sport. According to Wilson, he nearly did.
“About four years ago I had a really bad weight cut and a really bad performance,” Wilson admits. “At that point I was coming off of back to back losses in LFA and I was unsure [about moving forward].”
However, rather than packing it up for good and giving up on his goal, he decided to make one more effort to kick start his career. He headed out to Simpsonville, South Carolina for a chance to train with a former UFC title contender. The work with the new coach instantly sparked a change in the now UFC featherweight.
“I moved out to Upstate Karate and started training under Coach Ray Thompson and training alongside Wonderboy [Stephen Thompson],” he said. “Coach T quickly realized you’re better fighter than you let yourself believe. He started really instilling that confidence.”
Once Wonderboy’s dad could see the difference in the mindset, he asked Wilson to trust him with essentially starting his career again from the ground up. While someone his age might typically shy away from such a challenge – Wilson embraced it.
“We’re going to restart your career at 30-years old,” he recalls being told by Coach Thompson. “I said ‘okay, let’s do it. I’ll be your number two guy’. So we grinded away for the last four years and finally got that call.”
Now having gotten his first full training camp for a UFC fight under his belt, Wilson is ready to prove to the world that those changes make him dangerous. He’ll face Jean Silva as part of the UFC Vegas 84 prelims this Saturday on ESPN+ to do just that.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview at 45:33.
