Damon Jackson has always been a bigger featherweight. His 5’11” frame sucks down to nothing in order to make the weight, but as he’s entered the second half of his 30s, it’s gotten harder and harder to do so.
“That weight cut doesn’t get any easier. I make the weight everytime, but it almost feels like death,” he said. “It’s brutal. It’s not easy to make that weight.”
Not only has the weight cut become harder, but Jackson has also been given back-to-back opponents who have come in over the limit. Jackson noted that he felt like the latest of those opponents knew he would take the fight no matter what. After dealing with that again, he decided it was time for a change.
“I walk around at 175lbs, so for me to make featherweight is really hard. It’s a lot of weight,” Jackson said. “When the [Chepe Mariscal] fight was over, Sean [Shelby] came over and said ‘thank you for taking the fight – I appreciate it’. And I told him, I think it’s time for me to go up… He says as long as it makes sense, when ever you want, we’ll make it happen.”
After thinking about it for a bit, Jackson decided to try to get one more in before the end of the year. Following a loss and with an impending weight class change, he didn’t know what to expect in terms of opponent. So when they called with a name, he was very excited about it.
“I told them I’d like to fight one more time this year and then they came back with Jim Miller – so I was like ‘let’s go,” he said. “The fact that they trusted me enough to come at me with that matchup is definitely rewarding.”
You can catch Damon Jackson’s fight with Jim Miller as part of the UFC 309 prelims. That portion of the card begins at 8pm EST on ESPN+.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview at 2:10.
