The Brazilian Light Heavyweight fighter, Glover Teixeira finally achieved his lifelong dream of becoming the UFC champion at the age of 42 years. Teixeira defeated Jan Blachowicz at the main event of UFC 267 and become the oldest first-time UFC titleholder.
Blachowicz was the fan-favorite entering into this fight, especially after his dominating performance against Israel Adesanya in the fight for his first title defense. But Glover Teixeira finished him via second-round rear-naked choke and made his win look so easy.
Talking about his fight against Blachowicz, in his latest interview with Ariel Helwani for MMA Hour, Teixeira says, “When Joe Martinez was announcing my name, I was just looking at the ground, looking at the blood in there, I’m a bleeder myself, so I was like, ‘We’re gonna contribute to this blood because this is gonna be a war.’ Thinking that, ‘This is gonna be a war.”
“It’s not gonna be an easy fight, but I’m ready for whatever comes in this cage. There’s a man across the octagon with me and I have to beat him. I’ll be world champion tonight.’”
Glover Teixeira added, “I really think the whole thing is gonna be hard. I look at the fence, I look like how can I take him down and get elbows and watching this and that, so I didn’t think I was going to dominate him and take him down that easy. Again, ‘easy’ with all respect. It was a quick takedown.”
After dominating Jan Blachowicz in the first round, Glover Teixeira took him down in the second round, and as soon as Teixeira puts his hand around Blachowicz’s neck, he tapped. Talking about the same he added,
“I was punching him and we call the move, ‘spread the chicken, so I stretch him to the ground, my cup is pressing on his back. That’s a very uncomfortable pressure there and as soon as I put the hand, he tapped. But I knew he wasn’t gonna go anywhere, so he probably knew that too. It’s a tough position to get out of so might as well just tap I guess.” {H/t MMA Fighting}
Glover Teixeira revealed Corey Anderson loss forced him to change his approach
Teixeira arrived into this fight against Blachowicz with a five-fight winning streak and he last faced a loss inside the Octagon against Corey Anderson on UFC Fight Night: Shogun vs Smith. Glover Teixeira revealed it was the loss against Anderson that helped him to change his approach.
“After the Corey Anderson fight, right after then I just sit back and I see that the fight wasn’t like — He didn’t hurt me or nothing, you know? He just took me down a lot and I went for the guillotine and I wasn’t getting anything,”
“But right away that’s when I talked to myself and said I’m gonna do everything possible. I’m not gonna go back after this fight, I’m not gonna go back and stay out of camp, I’m just gonna stay in camp. I’m just gonna train hard all the time.” {H/t MMA Fighting}
