As much as he laments what he considers to be a poor showing in the biggest fight of his career, Josh Emmett isn’t thinking about the what-ifs surrounding his loss to Yair Rodriguez.
“It was going according to plan,” Emmett told MMA Fighting. “We know Yair, he’s crafty with his kicks, he’s elusive, he wants to bounce around the outside and pick me apart with kicks, and as we got in the later rounds, I was going to pick it up. For whatever reason, it just wasn’t my night.”
It took Emmett nearly seven years and 11 UFC fights to earn a shot at gold, so it’s understandable that he’d be upset with his second-round submission loss, which cost him the interim featherweight title and a shot at an eventual showdown with Alexander Volkanovski. Emmett admits to deviating from his game plan and credits Rodriguez for seizing on his mistakes, which led to only the third loss of his fighting career.
“In the second round, when I was in his guard hitting him, I didn’t respect [the submission] and he locked it up and cinched it in, and it was too late by that time. It bothered me a lot, but I moved on from it. I should have addressed it just like I did in the first round and stuck to the game plan, but it just wasn’t my day.”
To make matters worse, the fight took place halfway around the world in Australia, where Emmett and his wife had planned an elaborate celebration alongside their friends and family, who traveled there to watch him win UFC gold.
The loss obviously changed Emmett’s outlook on his post-fight vacation, although he credits his wife for not allowing him to get mired in the throes of defeat, even though all Emmett wanted to do was simmer in his own anger and disappointment.
“I was so pissed after the fight, just frustrated as can be, and at the afterparty, all my friends and family were going to be there and see me and meet up, and I didn’t want to go,” Emmett said. “[My wife said,] ‘Let’s go, it’s already planned, you’re getting paid, let’s go visit with people that came out here,’ and then we went to a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert that night and a Post Malone concert with some friends. Then we traveled around Australia, we stayed in Perth for a little bit, we stayed in Sydney, and then we went to the south and north island in New Zealand. And at certain times, I’m trying to enjoy it, but I keep thinking about the fight and keep playing it over in my head.
“I was definitely down and grieving, or whatever you want to call it. It’s the biggest fight of my life and it was just a s***** performance. But then my wife picked me up out of it and said, ‘You can either go home or you can try to enjoy this.’ It was hard but I do have to move on from it.”
Perhaps the best medicine to snap Emmett out of his funk was the call he received from his manager not long after he returned home to the United States. The UFC wanted him to make a quick turnaround to face Ilia Topuria in the main event of Saturday’s UFC Jacksonville card, which meant Emmett wouldn’t have to sit and wait to wash the bad taste of defeat out of his mouth.
It also meant Emmett had to stop lamenting his loss in the interim title fight, because that kind of distraction could lead to disaster against somebody like Topuria.
“I lost,” Emmett said. “I want to get back to where I was at and they have a tough, young, hungry fighter that they’re trying to push, and it’s a great matchup stylistically, but I can’t dwell on the past.
“Because if I keep thinking about that fight, it’s going to affect me in this fight, so I have to move on, have a short memory, and solely be focused on the task at hand — and that’s beating Ilia Topuria.”
Emmett knows the UFC is very high on Topuria, which means beating him will mean more than just picking up a win over any other featherweight contender.
While his upcoming fight won’t erase what happened against Rodriguez back in February, Emmett believes Saturday is a great chance to move forward and put himself back in a position where he could fight for a UFC title again in the near future.
“At the end of day, as long as I win fights, I’ll get to the top,” Emmett said. “I’ll never say no to a fight. As soon as they said, ‘We have [Ilia Topuria] for you,’ I said yes.
“With him having all this hype and people saying he’s going to be the next champ and he’s undefeated and he’s a good up-and-comer, I feel like with a huge statement made on June 24, I’m right back in the same position I was just in.”