Cory Sandhagen doesn’t live in the past, but he can’t help feeling regrets about how his most recent fight against Umar Nurmagomedov played out.
He ultimately lost a unanimous decision to the decorated Russian bantamweight, and as much as Sandhagen credits Nurmagomedov for a job well done, he also blames the man in the mirror for what went wrong that night. In his opinion, Sandhagen believes he essentially overthought his game plan and strategy rather than just reacting to what was happening in the octagon that night.
“The me and Umar fight, I feel like frustration lost me that fight a little bit,” Sandhagen explained when speaking to MMA Fighting. “I kind of went in with the framework, and with the perspective, that he was going to be very hard to hit. Instead of just being like ‘Oh that’s something to expect,’ it frustrated me more because I was like, but I’ve trained so hard in order to make it so I can hit a difficult guy and since it’s still not working, it’s making me frustrated. It kind of spiraled from there.
“I think any time that you get away from your true, natural way of winning, things usually don’t go well against the top guys in the world. I think I kind of overcorrected in that fight in that I knew that the point scoring was going to be close. I know that if anyone takes me down in the world, I can stand up. I’m confident in [that]. So I knew that was going to kind of cancel each other out. I knew that a lot of the fight was going to be determined by who landed the more significant shots, at least that’s what I thought that it would be.”
Sandhagen knows that he didn’t engage with Nurmagomedov in a way that would allow him to seize on openings that were presented during the fight, which cost him in the end.
“Where I should have just run my normal game plan of good martial arts until they make a mistake and then jump on them instead of half-good martial arts and forcing things that aren’t there,” Sandhagen said. “Because forcing things that aren’t there against good guys just flat out does not work. So frustration kind of lost me that one.
“I’m still kicking myself in the butt because when I watch that, because even thought it was scored four [rounds] to one or something like that, all of those rounds were really close. If I could have just done a couple of things differently, I would have won. That’s the story of mine. I’m really good at almost winning these fights so I’ve got to figure out how to actually get these close rounds bagged. That’s what I’ve been working on.”
If there’s one positive to come away from such a negative loss, it’s that Sandhagen has taken upon himself to ensure he doesn’t end up with another result like that on his resume.
He’s booked to face Deiveson Figueiredo in the UFC Des Moines main event on May 3, and Sandhagen promises there’s no holding back in this fight.
“I think that I’m really going to challenge myself to go out and put a stamp on this thing,” Sandhagen said. “I’ve been training to dominate people. I trained my ass off in between the two fights with Trevor [Wittman], driving all the way up to Golden to go to his gym to work with him and then really dialing in a lot of the grappling stuff that I’ve been doing with my wrestling coach and then with my jiu-jitsu coach.
“I feel like a lot of things have really come together because I’ve been busting my ass because I f*cking hate losing. I’m super stoked to go out there and really be able to shine.”
The way Sandhagen feels going into his upcoming fight is that he hasn’t really put on a truly memorable performance in a couple of years, which is obviously disappointing.
That only adds fuel to the fire when it comes to Sandhagen’s desire to really put on a show against Figueiredo and erase some bad memories from recent performances.
“I haven’t had a good win in a really long time,” Sandhagen said. “My last win was [against Rob Font] when I tore my tricep and everyone shit on me for it. Before that it was Chito [Vera], and my ego misses the feeling of being the man for a couple of weeks in the world of MMA. I’m hoping to get that back for at least a little bit.”
As if he needed any more motivation, Sandhagen knows his fight takes place almost exactly one month prior to the bantamweight title rematch between Merab Dvalishvili and Sean O’Malley. If he’s able to do what he’s planning to do, Sandhagen expects that serves notice to the UFC that he’s the next man up for the title shot.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am,” Sandhagen said. “I just really want to shine, and I think that I’m a good enough performer now where I can really just go out and do my damn thing now. I’m not going to let anything stop me in this one. I’m definitely I think I’m going to be able to finish Figueiredo. I think that I’m going to show up the best version that I’ve ever been.
“I think that I’m going to look like a real champion in there to the point where the UFC is going to have to give me a shot after this one, just with how impressive I plan on looking. I’m pumped.”