With back-to-back losses, Jordan Espinosa has pressure on him heading into Saturday – but is finding a way to make that work for him.
With back-to-back losses, [autotag]Jordan Espinosa[/autotag] has a little pressure on him heading into Saturday.
But his mindset is to not think about things much differently than normal, and in some ways he even wonders if the consecutive setbacks might work to his advantage.
Espinosa (14-7 MMA, 1-2 UFC) meets Mark De La Rosa (11-4 MMA, 2-4 UFC) in a bantamweight bout at UFC on ESPN 10, which takes place Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The card airs on ESPN and streams on ESPN+.
Because Espinosa’s most recent two losses were first-round submissions to Matt Schnell and Alex Perez, De La Rosa doesn’t have as much to go off of, Espinosa reasons.
“The silver lining with having the two losses in a row and them being first-round submissions is that I didn’t get to really show what I was capable of,” Espinosa said during a Thursday virtual media day ahead of the event. “My opponent and my future opponents probably think I suck. They haven’t gotten to see anything in my game except for maybe my lack of jiu-jitsu defense.
“But that’s good for me. I still have a lot that I can show and I feel like that keeps me dangerous, in a sense. I always feel like my job’s never secure. I’m never super comfortable. I always treat the fights the same. I’m coming into this fight like it’s my final fight in the UFC.”
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Espinosa, who’s based in Albuquerque, N.M., said he made a trip to Missouri to work with UFC welterweight James Krause and his team for the last portion of his training camp, in part because the stay-at-home orders there were less stringent than the ones in New Mexico. He said that change of pace in training should pay off for him Saturday.
But he’s also fighting an opponent in De La Rosa that he was booked to meet in November 2018 for his UFC debut before he was forced out with a knee injury. Consequently, De La Rosa has been on Espinosa’s radar for a while. And so, too, will the environment on fight night seem familiar to him since fighting in front of no fans at the UFC Apex will be similar to his pair of appearances on Dana White’s Contender Series.
“I had a training camp for (De La Rosa) a year and a half ago,” Espinosa said. “We’ve had some of the same opponents, and I’m very familiar with his style. Honestly, it was an easy transition.
“Compared to most of the other guys on the card, it’s going to be more familiar for me. I fought on the Contender Series twice. The second time, I was so calm. Everything felt really relaxed and I was so comfortable. I expect this to go the same.”
De La Rosa has had struggles of his own. He’s on a three-fight skid and has been bouncing around between flyweight and bantamweight. He’s in as much of a must-win situation as Espinosa is, if not more.
The oddsmakers have Espinosa a slight favorite, and if he was searching for a reason why he thinks De La Rosa is up against someone he hasn’t seen before.
“He hasn’t really fought guys that move like me,” Espinosa said. “… I’m a lot more mobile. I’m a lot more dynamic. I get in and out. He hasn’t fought anyone like that. He kind of fights the opposite – he’ll pressure and bite down and throw. He has good jiu-jitsu, (and) not so great wrestling. I’m strong in my wrestling. It doesn’t seem like he has much power. But he’s tough. He’s willing to take a shot to give a few. But I think where my strengths are, if I want to take him to the ground, I can and if I want to keep it on the feet and frustrate him, I think I can do that, too.”
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