mma / News

Cub Swanson Says Unfinished Business Helped Him to Re-Sign With UFC

April 16, 2018 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas

Cub Swanson spoke with MMAjunkie ahead of his fight with Frankie Edgar at UFC Fight Night 128. Some excerpts from the interview are below:

On getting offered the fight against Edgar: “He wasn’t somebody really on my radar that I thought that I would get a rematch with. There are a lot of rematches I could get in the UFC, and that wasn’t one I thought was going to happen any time soon. And then the UFC approached me with it, and I was like, ‘Hell, yeah. Let’s do this.’ I’ve been wanting this one for a while. I just didn’t think it was close.”

On testing the free agent market: “You’ve got to have tough skin when you’re going around, because you’ve got to kind of figure out what you’re worth at that time and depend on what organizations – it takes a lot of homework. We talked to literally everybody. And everybody had interest in me. But I think a lot of guys are coming out of the UFC on losses, on multiple losses, like they got cut. They’re not able to ask for as much money and things like that. So I think a lot of companies weren’t really prepared to make me a big offer.”

On nearly leaving the UFC: “I was really close to signing with a company. I was really thinking hard about it. Me and my manager talked about it. I said, ‘Man, I really would like to be with the UFC, and I don’t like how this has all been playing out because I just wish that they would hit me with a number that I felt comfortable with and be happy to push forward’…They called me and said, ‘Hey, we want to offer you a better deal than we talked about originally, but we also want you to take this fight.’ I was like, ‘Cool, let’s do it.’”

On having unfinished business in the UFC: “I felt like I was on such a roll (when we first fought). I was expecting to fight for a title, and then they wanted me to fight him. It just didn’t go my way. He was great that night. And I felt like he was the better fighter that night, by far. But I learned a lot from that loss. And I feel like I’ve been working for years on how to get better on those things.”