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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Luke Rockhold's loss to Vitor Belfort on Saturday night at UFC on FX 8 was his first since 2007, which came in just his second career fight. It snapped a nine-fight winning streak, and the final Strikeforce Middleweight Champion was left searching for answers after the event.
"It doesn't feel good," Rockhold said of the loss at the post-fight press conference (via MMAJunkie.com). "I haven't lost in a long time. I don't like losing. I train to win, and I came to win. It definitely doesn't feel good."
"I mean it's hard to say what went wrong. I was feeling good. I was finding my timing. I felt like I was controlling things, and then he landed a spinning heel kick to my head."
Despite heavy criticism of Belfort's use of TRT prior to the event, Rockhold refused to attribute the finish to that, but he remained unsure of where he went wrong. Still, he couldn't help but credit Belfort for pulling the win off.
"I felt good in this fight," Rockhold said. "I had a great camp. I felt good in the fight. I was focused. I don't know if I got overconfident or what exactly happened. I don't know. I thought I had it. I felt good. I saw his punches. I saw everything. I was landing some shots. I felt like I was starting to control things, and then I got caught. It happens."
"I lost to one of the best guys in the world, and it was something pretty spectacular. I don't know what to really think about anything right now. I just want to get back and fight and beat someone up. That's what I'm focused on. Good job by Vitor. What can I say?"
For now, all Rockhold can do is try to get back into the cage and turn things around, and he's hoping to do just that as quickly as possible.
"It sucks right now," Rockhold said. "I don't know. I want to get back in there. I want to fight, obviously. Everyone says it, but what can you do at this point? I want to get in there. I want to fight. I want to redeem myself."
Penick's Analysis: The way Saturday's fight played out was one of the options that seemed likely coming in. Either Rockhold was going to survive Belfort's early round offense or he wasn't, and unfortunately for him the latter is what played out. Belfort's sitting as the #2 guy at 185 lbs. right now, so losing to him isn't necessarily terrible for Rockhold, but now it's all about how he responds. He's going to have a much longer path to a title fight now than he would have had with a win over Belfort, so he's got to focus on getting that started in his next outing.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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