Condit’s future is uncertain after defeats
MMA fighter has lost four straight
In a phone interview with the Journal on April 11, Carlos Condit was asked the following question: Does he actually enjoy training, or is training something he merely endures because he loves fighting?
In truth, he said, he loves everything about it.
“I enjoy the process,” the veteran Albuquerque MMA fighter said. “This is what I love to do.
“I don’t like all of it. It’s not always fun; a lot of times it’s a grind. It’s tough, but I enjoy what I do for a living.”
Monday, two days after his loss by second-round submission (guillotine choke) to Alex Oliveira in Glendale, Ariz., Condit posted on Instagram a photo of himself sitting in the octagon with his back to the fence, blood from a cut to his head streaming down his face.
“Maybe my time has passed,” the UFC veteran wrote. “I don’t know the answer.
“(But) this is what I know, this is my passion. I will never stop training. And if that leads me back to the octagon, you know I’ll try to make it bloody for ya.”
Should Condit retire? All the empirical evidence says yes. He has lost four fights in a row; he’s taken more than his share of punishment; he turns 34 on Thursday.
And, though ideally one might prefer to retire on a win, the loss to Oliveira was satisfying in its own way.
On Dec. 30 in Las Vegas, Nev., in his comeback fight after some 16 months of inactivity, Condit lost by unanimous decision to Neil Magny. It was a relatively boring fight, something rarely said about a fight involving Condit, and the Albuquerquean accomplished little.
That night, Condit declined interview requests from the Albuquerque media in attendance. The next morning in the Las Vegas airport, he waited at the gate for his flight home with the hood of his sweatshirt obscuring as much of his face as possible. Clearly, the Magny fight was a performance in which he took no pride.
The Oliveira fight, in contrast, was — while it lasted — vintage Condit.
He won an explosive first round on all three official scorecards. The second round was equally wild until Oliveira, all of a sudden, secured the guillotine choke.
Finally, unwillingly, Condit tapped out.
Condit (30-12) was paid $115,000 for the fight.
Though his disappointment was palpable on Monday’s Instagram entry, so, too, was his pride.
“I had fun,” he wrote. “I trained my ass off and I came to fight. This is what leaving it all out there looked like . ... ”
Whether or not Condit fights again, “leaving it all out there” easily could stand as his career signature.
LEO UPDATE: Clearly, the folks at Mayweather Promotions don’t believe in babying their contract fighters.
Albuquerque’s Angelo Leo (12-0, seven KOs), a Mayweather fighter for barely six months, is scheduled for his third bout with the company on May 11.
Luis Chavez, Leo’s Albuquerque trainer, said the 23-yearold fighter is matched against Phoenix’s Keenan Carbajal (142-1, eight KOs) in a scheduled eight-round bout. Leo is moving up from super bantamweight to featherweight (126 pounds).
Carbajal, the nephew of former world champion Michael Carbajal, has won his last nine bouts.
In his first two bouts with Mayweather Promotions, Leo defeated boxers with a combined record of 35-10.
IT’S ON: As previously announced, Albuquerque cruiserweights Max Heyman and Mike Alderete will fight a rubber/grudge match at Route 66 Casino Hotel on June 23. There was some doubt initially, because trainer-manager-promoter Fidel Maldonado Sr. said he was Alderete’s manager and had plans to put Alderete on his card the previous week.
Later, though, Maldonado said he was OK with Alderete fighting for Legacy Promotions on the 23rd.
On May 7, 2010, Alderete defeated Heyman by split decision. Heyman later said he’d broken his hand in the first round, but added that poor conditioning, not the hand, was the reason he lost.
In the rematch six months later, Heyman dominated en route to a win by ninth-round TKO.
When the rubber match was announced during an intermission at Legacy’s March 17 card at Route 66, the two men were brought into the ring. Alderete charged at his old nemesis, and the two had to be kept apart.