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“What’s More Pressure than Being in a Fight?” – Philly’s Jeremiah Wells (+700) Locks in Nasty Choke to Win at UFC 330
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Philly’s Jeremiah Wells was the only local guy on the UFC 330 card, opening the night as a +700 underdog.
He pulled it off with a third round submission:
This was an impressive display of resilience from Wells, who landed some good shots on Myktybek Orolbai in the first round, but was taken to the ground and controlled while fighting off submissions. It was a similar story in round 2, in which Wells had to dig deep to defend a Kimura attempt and extend the bout. He was able to get back to his feet, but with only 45 seconds remaining on the clock.
Wells was down 0-2 on the scorecards when he landed a huge right hand about a minute in the third round. He needed the finish and got the finish, taking advantage of a mistake.
“If I get a good, clean shot, he’s going down (to shoot),” Wells told the gathered scribes after the fight. “When I was hitting him, I was like, ‘oh, he don’t like that.’ That’s why he was shooting. I switched my stance, hit him, and I see him shoot for a single leg and he went for the wrong leg. I catch those heads like footballs. I grab heavyweights with that. I even choked Joe Pyfer with that one time.”
Interestingly enough, Wells walked out to boos to start the card. There were quite a few Kyrgyz fans of Orolbai in the house, supporting their guy in his first fight on the East Coast of the United States. That was unexpected, but Wells said it didn’t make the task any more difficult.
“If it was someone else there would be more pressure, but not me,” he said. “What’s more pressure than being in a fight? If there’s more pressure on top of that, I don’t think you should be fighting. I’ve been doing this for years so I’ve learned that you don’t make something bigger than it is. You embrace the moment. Once you embrace the moment, and not think about the future or the past and just be in the now, everything will go your way.”
Speaking with Joe Rogan in the ring, Wells suggested that retirement might be in the cards at age 39. He said more about that after the fight, offering some clarity.
“To be honest, I do want to come back,” he admitted. “But if I don’t go forward (in the rankings and/or a path to bigger fights/more money), then I don’t, because I’m a talented fighter, to be honest. Just cause of my age I feel like they don’t wanna promote me, or probably because I need to be talkative. But I can be talkative. I can hire somebody to help me, whatever. I’ll spit my shit, whatever. But yeah man, I’m 40 almost, but my 40 is 33. I’m a different type of 40. No one’s like me. I’m unique.”
“I got enough time, a couple more years to do this.”
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com