Mendes: With a full camp, I win that fight
Chad Mendes: “I’m not sitting here saying that’s the reason why I lost. But I feel that if I am completely prepared for that fight, I win that fight.”
Chad Mendes appeared on last week’s ‘The MMA Hour’ with Ariel Helwani and reflected on his fight with Conor McGregor at UFC 189 and how it would go differently if they fought again:
It hurt to watch,” Mendes admitted Tuesday on The MMA Hour.
“It’s something I still think about. Sometimes (I) lay in bed still thinking about it. It’s definitely going to take some time to get over it, but you know, that’s just part of the game.”
Mendes ventured into the shamrock whirlwind on less than two weeks’ notice to challenge McGregor for the UFC interim featherweight strap on July 11, and though Mendes controlled the early stages of the fight, McGregor’s promise of a second-round knockout ultimately proved prophetic. The Irishman chiseled away at Mendes’ gas tank until drowning the weary American under a salvo of punches in the closing moments of the second stanza to seize gold.
While the loss was painful in and of itself, the thing that irks Mendes the most is that he was winning the fight right up until the moment he gave it away. And if he could do it all over again with a full camp to prepare for five rounds, he’s confident the outcome would be different.
“110-percent, no doubt in my mind,” Mendes said. “I’m not making excuses. I’m not sitting here saying that’s the reason why I lost. But I feel that if I am completely prepared for that fight, I win that fight. Every single time.”