Steve Garcia had the opportunity of a lifetime when he was matched up against two-time title challenger Diego Lopes in the opening fight on the historic UFC White House card in June.
It was a chance for the usually soft-spoken featherweight to beat a higher ranked opponent and immediately inject himself into the title conversation at 145 pounds. Unfortunately for Garcia, after a strong opening round he was drawn into a firefight and Lopes scored a dramatic knockout to end the fight.
It definitely wasn’t the result that Garcia wanted but looking back at the fight now, he can immediately identify the mistakes made that led to the knockout.
“I was very surprised when I went out there,” Garcia told MMA Fighting. “He told me he wasn’t going to take a backstep and all this stuff. It’s pre-fight interview stuff but I thought he would have met me in the middle and he didn’t. He seemed a little gun shy. He wasn’t very aggressive. I was expecting these things from him and [then he didn’t do it].”
When Lopes came gunning for him in the second round, Garica admits that he effectively threw caution to the wind, bit down on his mouthpiece and just started trading bombs — and he paid for it.
“We got into this brawl and my Albuquerque showed,” Garcia said with a laugh. “I was like we’re just doing this. He hit me with a shot, it wasn’t clean but it definitely threw me off balance. Almost like a [clubbing blow] with the forearm and I was trying to get situation again and we just ended up in a scrap. I feel like I should have been more technically sound defensively in that moment and I could have clinched, I could have done a few different things. Looking back afterwards, I feel like I didn’t hit him with the best things I’ve got.
“When I got dropped, in my head I’m like I’m good, I’m good, I’m good. I did that for like two or three seconds. There’s a few things I probably should have done and I didn’t do it. I think this is just me talking out loud, I’m not far off. I was winning that fight until I wasn’t. I ‘ll take my ‘L’ like a man. I’ll see it for what it is but the No. 2 guy in the world, who I expected to be so much crazier than me and it was going to be the fight of my life, it wasn’t.”
Garcia says the whole White House experience was surreal but it was also much different than any other fight week he’s had in the UFC.
Because he was competing as the opening bout on the seven-fight card, Garcia and Lopes both had to deal with delays after weather forced the UFC to push back the start time. That didn’t really affect anybody else but it definitely played a part in Garcia and Lopes getting ready to make the walk to the cage that night.
“When it came to the actual warm up situation, me and Diego were the first fight so I think we were kind of the guinea pigs for the rest of the card,” Garcia said. “So that kind of sucked. We were supposed to be starting right on time, that’s what they told us. I had warmed up and everything as needed. I felt amazing. Then right in the middle of my warmup, they’re like we’re going to cut it. We’ve got to do a 30 minute delay. I was like dammit. I was already riding that high. I’ll try not to get too high or not to get too low but I was just sitting on the mat for about a half-hour.
“All right, we’re going to start getting ready to go again. So me and [Mike Winkeljohn] started hitting pads and within a minute they’re like ‘we’re getting ready to walk.’ I haven’t even broke a sweat again! It’s kind of crazy. It is what it is. I’m not going to complain about it because Diego had to deal with the same thing I did. It was just a lot of different variables and I feel like I needed to adjust to it better.”
Garcia also went into his fight without one of his head coaches after Greg Jackson chose to sit out from the UFC White House card. He still had Mike Winkeljohn there by his side along with longtime teammate Joey Villasenor but Garcia confessed that it was still odd not to have Jackson there giving instructions.
“It definitely felt different,” Garcia said. “So Wink and Greg are the best ying and yang. I had a conversation with Christian Edwards today about how Wink and Greg corner and you have Wink who is this ‘rah-rah’ guy. He gets you amped up like ‘we need to go get this round!’ Greg, who can do that too, he has a more methodical approach to everything. Honestly, Wink did exactly what he needed to do. He got me amped up for that second round. Because I took out Joey Villasenor and he’s awesome but what I’m used to hearing another voice that’s not there, it’s different.
“Having Greg there, I talked to him already, and I know he would have pulled my head out of my ass because we would have had this conversation mid-round. When I got back to the stool, I would have told him what I’m seeing, what’s going on and he would have just kind of figured it out. It is what it was. Honestly between both of them I’m undefeated. I haven’t lost with Wink and Greg in my corner together.”
Returning home to New Mexico, Garcia was still dealing with the fallout from the loss and that included telling his young son what happened to him.
After going undefeated for the past four years, Garcia never had to tell his son about losing before and that led to a heartbreaking conversation he hopes to never have again.
“When I got home, my son asked me ‘Daddy, did you win?’” Garcia revealed. “I hadn’t lost in four years so he doesn’t know what it’s like for dad to lose. I was like no, dad didn’t win. He started crying. It broke me. It hurt me.
“I was like look when we play video games or something like that, I’ll tell him if you lose — because sometimes I’ll go in on him, I’m like you need to lose — if you lose, what does daddy always tell you? He said ‘try again.’ Exactly so daddy has to try again.”
If that wasn’t motivation enough, Garcia knows he was having a good night at the office against Lopes before he got caught and knocked out.
Garcia is more than confident he can get back to that same position again and he’s ready to show the rest of the featherweight division that he’s capable of becoming champion sooner than later.
“You’re going to see a whole new Steve Garcia that you haven’t seen before,” Garcia said. That’s me breaking it down.
“At the end of the day, everybody has it coming. I was telling people and excuse my language but everybody’s f*cked. Everybody’s getting it. That’s fine. I don’t know who else they want to give me but I tasted what it’s like to be at the very top and I want more of it.”
