For Jorge Rivera, last Saturday’s fight against Kendall Grove at UFC 80 in Newcastle, England, was make or break. The 35-year-old Milford native hadn’t fought in nearly a year and hadn’t won a UFC fight in two years.
A loss to the 25-year-old Grove, who won “The Ultimate Fighter 3,” would have resulted in the end of Rivera’s UFC career.
“If I had lost, I’d be retiring or looking for a different show to fight on,” Rivera said. “The truth of it is I don’t want to fight for another show. This is the top of the line of what we do, and once you’re here, to go backwards is to (regress) so why bother? If I was going to go backwards, I might as well retire.”
Rivera (15-6) was able to put those retirement plans to rest with a decisive TKO of Grove at the 1:20 mark of the first round.
The early knockout out was no accident. It was a major part of Rivera’s game plan.
“The whole training (plan) was to put a lot of pressure on him to see where he’d crack,” Rivera said. “I didn’t feel Kendall was going to be really strong so if I went in and put pressure on him I thought it would exploit his weaknesses sooner or later, and it was sooner than later.”
Rivera trained at his home school USMMA in Bellingham, as well as at Sityodtong in Somerville and at Tim Burrill Jiu-Jitsu in North Providence. Rivera said training with Dover’s Kenny Florian, a friend and one of the top contenders in the UFC’s lightweight division, was valuable.
“Kenny has a lot of knowledge and great knowledge of the game itself,” Rivera said. “He’s definitely an asset.”
Rivera said the 11 months since he lost to Terry Martin at UFC 67 – a fight that ended with Rivera knocked out just 14 seconds in – gave him time to get into better shape and tighten up his skills. More importantly, it caused a shift in Rivera’s mindset entering the Grove fight.
“To be honest, I really didn’t care,” Rivera said. “It’s not that I didn’t care, it’s just that I didn’t have much to lose. I was more relaxed. You always have the anxiety and butterflies and that’s just normal. But there wasn’t the additional pressure that I sometimes put on myself to perform at a higher level so it just came more natural for me. I think I’m going to approach it like that from now on.”
Rivera has long been a mentally tough individual and as he matures he believes it can only improve his chances against younger foes.
“As I mature and grow older I can lean on these things and draw from those experiences,” Rivera said. “A lot of these guys are a lot younger than I am and I know they haven’t been in the situations I have. They haven’t persevered how I have, so that helps me.”
Rivera has no plans to take another year off before his next fight.
“I want to fight again as soon as possible and keep training hard,” the middleweight said. “I want to fight within two or 2 1/2 months. I want to have three fights in a row where I’m winning convincingly.”
If Rivera is able to accomplish that, he has no plans on stopping soon, despite what he thought heading into the Grove fight.
“(I’ll fight) as long as God allows me to and as long as my health is good,” Rivera said. “I’m taking it day-by-day and fight-by-fight right now.”
Around the Octagon
A lifelong Massachusetts resident, Rivera is a diehard Boston sports fan. Not surprisingly, he predicts a Patriots win next Sunday.
“I think it’s going to be a blowout this time,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be as close as the last game. I think that game was a false sense of security for the Giants.”
Perhaps the only letdown for Rivera last weekend was that he wasn’t able to watch the Patriots prevail in the AFC Championship Game because he missed his flight from Newcastle to London and didn’t arrive home until Sunday night at 11. Still, he was happy to be a part of another successful weekend in Boston sports.
“All of New England sports right now are on a roll,” Rivera said. “It’s a good feeling to keep the ball rolling.” …
With last weekend’s fight in Newcastle, the UFC has now hosted a number of events in the United Kingdom. In a discussion two weeks ago, UFC president Dana White said the next step this year will be taking events deeper into Europe. White said he was close to finishing deals to bring the UFC to Germany and Croatia. . . .
It was announced last week that Harley Davidson will become a sponsor for the UFC. The deal gives the UFC its first major, mainstream sponsorship. The Harley Davidson logo will be displayed in the center of the Octagon, at weigh-in backdrops and at news conferences.
“Every year, we’ve taken this thing to another level but the one thing that wasn’t there was the big, blue chip sponsor,” White said in a release. “I think it’s just the beginning. It’s a perfect brand for us and the perfect brand for them.”
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