Philadelphia — It goes without saying that Chidi Njokuani had a tough build up to Saturday’s UFC 330, where he earned a unanimous decision victory over Joel Alvarez.
First, there was an opponent switch. Njokuani was originally booked against Geoff Neal, who withdrew from the fight just a few weeks out. In the end, Njokuani (26-12, 1NC) didn’t even catch any film on his new foe.
“Honestly I didn’t watch any film on him. I knew he was good, I saw his record, it spoke for itself, but I didn’t even know what he was going to attempt to do, I didn’t know what he had done in the past,” Njokuani told media outlets including Cageside Press following the fight. “So I wasn’t really shocked by anything. I just kind of went off what my coaches told me to do, and we stuck to our game plan, and it worked out.”
Then there was an even greater hurdle to overcome. That’s because Njokuani lost his Muay Thai coach, Saxonn Janjira, recently. “If I’m being completely honest, I couldn’t even think about the fight. I didn’t watch any tape on Joel, I was just thinking about my coach the whole time.”
Njokuani focused on listening to his remaining coaches, and admitted that “I was this close to pulling out of the fight, but I could hear Saxonn’s voice in the back of my head, like ‘you better not pull out!’ So I didn’t even get a chance to even like think about the rest of camp. I was just kind of going through the motions and just trusting that once the bell rings, I’ll snap into it.”
Njokuani will now take some time to grieve, though getting the Neal fight re-booked is appealing to him. “Geoff Neal would be cool, I think that’s in the direction of the top 15. But Joel is one of those opponents, that I think maybe if he would of beat me, he probably would have got a top 15 opponent after that. We’ll see what I get after this, I’m not really rushing into getting into a fight next.”
Njokuani had an interesting day at weigh-ins on Friday, initially being told he missed weight despite hitting the mark on the scale backstage. He then weighed in a second time, successfully, without cutting any additional weight.
“It was crazy, because you know they make you weigh in on the digital scale in the back first, and they double check and make sure you’re on weight before you go out there. If you’re heavy, they know that you’re heavy first, you go out there, weigh in, show everybody you’re heavy, and then you go and cut.”
Njokuani weighed in successfully in the back, with his shorts on. Then he went to the official scale, and was a pound heavy. “I was looking at the commission, I didn’t know what was going on. They were like ‘you’re going to have to cut.’ I’m like ‘I’m not cutting anything. I’m gonna cut this motherf*cker if he don’t get his sh*t together. I’m not cutting no more weight!’ That’s where the confusion came from. So we went back, tried it again, came back, and then they messed with the scale, they put it on the right weight and then I stepped on, and then it worked out. Luckily it worked out, because I wasn’t cutting.”
Watch the full UFC 330 post-fight press conference with Chidi Njokuani above.
