Edmonton — Dustin Stoltzfus earned himself a Performance of the Night bonus with his knockout of Marc-Andre Barriault at UFC Edmonton— and he did it with a nagging facial injury.
That makes the slugfest the broke out prior to the finish all the more impressive. Coincidentally, the UFC broadcast team suggested that fighting in a phonebooth was just where Barriault thrived, right as Stoltzfus dropped him.
Asked if his own toughness and durability were perhaps being overlooked, Stoltzfus (16-6) told Cageside Press following the fight that “I don’t think there’s a better testament to toughness and durability than my last fight. Even though it didn’t go my way at the end, my face isn’t healed from that. And he did not put me down and keep me down. I came into this fight against a strong veteran striker with a face that’s not completely fused. If that doesn’t say something about my toughness, I don’t know what does.”
Stoltzfus lost his prior fight against Brunno Ferreira when the Brazilian landed a spinning back elbow, and that appears to be where the troubles with the facial fracture began. Yet while his face isn’t fully fused, there’s nothing the middleweight can do but wait for it to heal, though perhaps some time off is in order.
“There’s not really much you can do about it, other than just give it some time. I thought it was good, and that’s why we took the fight,” Stoltzfus explained. “I got cleared for it, and then it was actually the UFC that waved the red flag a little bit. ‘Hey these images don’t look that great.’ And then we got it checked out again. It was about three weeks out from the fight, maybe less, just a couple of weeks out when I finally saw the imaging. And the doctor was like ‘this isn’t great, try not to get hit.’ Which is great advice. He said it was probably good enough, but I should probably take some time off and actually heal it up the whole way before I fight again.”
Stoltzfus was on the final fight of his current contract at UFC Edmonton, and is hoping the UFC brings him back. He was also hoping he’d done enough for the bonus, which turned out to be the case.
“The bonus is such a life-changing thing. I was lucky enough to get one in the fight against Puna [Soriano], and I mean, it’s just life-changing. I can’t really put into words for someone who is otherwise making a blue collar wage, to get an unexpected 50 grand on top of it is amazing.” Noting there were a bunch of good fights on the UFC Edmonton card still to come, Stoltzfus added “Dana, if you’re watching, it would mean the world.”
Watch the full UFC Edmonton post-fight press conference with Dustin Stoltzfus above.
