Glover Teixeira isn’t the same fighter or the same man he was on April 26, 2014, the night he first challenged for the UFC light heavyweight title.
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The champion that night was Jon Jones, six successful title defenses into his reign and at the height of his powers.
“When I fought Jon Jones, they were already talking about him being one of the greatest,” said Teixeira. “Then you go in with that pressure.”
Any fight for the title, especially against a fighter of Jones’ caliber, is high-pressure. But add in the fact that many believed the 22-2 Teixeira, unbeaten for eight years, was going to upset “Bones,” and there were a lot of expectations on the Brazilian’s shoulders.
“I think for the Jones fight I put too much pressure on myself,” he said. “I did the camp too long, and the whole situation when it came to fight week, I was already very stressed out and I just wanted to get it over with.”
Five rounds later, Jones had a unanimous decision win and the belt remained in his possession. Teixeira was forced to regroup, and while he picked up some big wins in the next few years over the likes of Ovince Saint Preux, Rashad Evans, Jared Cannonier and Misha Cirkunov, by the time 2018 ended, he was 5-4 since the Jones bout and far from another shot at the title.
Yet he never stopped believing.
“No, not really, but there have been moments right after fights,” he said when asked if he ever lost sight of the dream of being a world champion. “After I lost a fight, you’re kinda like…in Brazil we would say you hit the post. I fought Anthony Johnson and (Alexander) Gustafsson and I was fighting in title eliminators, and when I lost those fights, you get discouraged for a moment. But I’m always positive, I go back to the drawing board, I go back and I train and I feel good in training and fix stuff here and there and it comes to a point where I do some changing over here and go from there. And it worked. So far, it’s been great, and I’ve been enjoying it more and more.”
Great would be the perfect way to describe Teixeira’s body of work from 2019 to the present. Five fights, five wins, four finishes, with only Nikita Krylov going the distance with him. Those who fell to his fists or his submission game? Karl Roberson, Ion Cutelaba, Anthony Smith and Thiago Santos. That quintet of victories earned the 42-year-old an all-expense paid trip to Abu Dhabi, where he will fight Jan Blachowicz for the UFC light heavyweight title in the main event of UFC 267 this Saturday.