Athletes
Austin Hubbard Is Ready For Round Two
Lightweight Hopes To Have Another Chance In The UFC By Becoming The Winner Of Season 31 Of The Ultimate Fighter
A lot of people were surprised when Austin Hubbard was released from the UFC after a 3-4 run in the promotion from 2019 to 2021.
Hubbard was one of them.
Order UFC 292: Sterling vs O'Malley
“I was very surprised, to say the least,” he said. “I've never lost back-to-back fights in my life, and I felt like I always put on pretty good performances. Even if I lost, I felt they were close losses, except the Joe Solecki fight where he got the submission in the first round. But what happened happened, and it's been a hell of a last two years trying to get back.”
Spoiler alert…Hubbard is back, and fighting on Saturday night in Boston, attempting to win The Ultimate Fighter 31 lightweight crown when he faces Team Chandler squadmate Kurt Holobaugh.
But about those two years, it was a time when Hubbard went 2-0 when he could get fights, yet wondered if fighting for a living was even going to be a reality anymore without those three letters on his gloves.
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“Getting back to the UFC was goal number one, but I have a family to take care of,” he said. “I was willing to fight wherever I could get paid, but I wasn't getting many opportunities for whatever reason; people just weren't taking fights against me. I only had two fights since not being re-signed and then getting called into the Ultimate Fighter. So, it was very hard to get fights and to get the opportunities to get the bigger fights again. And yeah, it was pretty stressful. I wasn't sure what my future was even going to be.”
Sadly, that was the easy dilemma of the last two years. Outside of competition, Hubbard and his family faced their toughest tests. But he made it through, and in 2023, he’s a different person from what he was when he was just chasing world titles.
“After everything I've gone through the past two years, I'm just not even remotely the same person,” Hubbard explains. “My mindset is significantly different. What I went through was so hard. Me and my wife were expecting, and we lost the baby. And then a few months later I lost my brother. And then, just a lot of financial stress and anything that could go wrong was going wrong, big or little. I had a really defeated feeling and I made it through that. So if I can make it through that and fight my way back and come out on top, these fights aren't as high of a pedestal as they used to be the first time around.”
Austin Hubbard Discusses His Semifinal Win | The Ultimate Fighter Season 31
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Austin Hubbard Discusses His Semifinal Win | The Ultimate Fighter Season 31
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But the lessons learned in life do show up in the Octagon, and on The Ultimate Fighter, Hubbard showed the talent he previously showed in winning three UFC fights over Kyle Prepolec, Max Rohskopf and Dakota Bush, by defeating Aaron McKenzie and Roosevelt Roberts. This time, though, those wins hit a little different as he fought his way back to the big show.
“Going through all those things changes your perspective a little bit,” he said. “And not to say I care any less, because I’m definitely very thankful to be in this position and I care a lot to be in the UFC and everything along those lines. But, I don't know, I'm just different. I don't feel the same about things anymore and it's just the way it is. Good or bad, I feel like it does help me fight better. My first time around, I felt a lot of pressure to perform. You're new in the UFC, I was younger in my career, and there's a lot of pressure that can get to you sometimes. So I feel like I didn't quite perform the way I was fully capable of. And I feel like I overcame that slow start, so to speak, just because I feel a lot more free in there now. And honestly when I go into fights, it's the closest I feel to my brother. So it's not really a stressful thing as much as it used to be.”
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That attitude makes Hubbard a dangerous fighter, and while he wasn’t necessarily looking at TUF as his way back, he has no regrets about taking that route on his way to TD Garden.
“All the guys in the house were very cool and down to Earth people,” he said. “There wasn't anyone in the house that was a bad person or anything along those lines, so I think that helped the experience, for sure. It's definitely the craziest fight experience that I've ever gone through, but I had a lot of great learning lessons going through it and, at the end of the day, I'm very, very happy that I got the opportunity and capitalized on the opportunity.”
Not that it was easy coming off the loss of Maxx and jumping right into a fighting competition while cut off from the world and living every day in front of cameras.
“It was a good getaway where I could escape a lot of things, but, at the same time, you're cut off from the world and you're just left in your own thoughts and mind the whole time,” he said. “And that was something that I didn't really anticipate going into the whole opportunity was when I went through The Ultimate Fighter. I was pretty fresh out of losing my brother and he was heavily on my mind, and just kind of sitting with all those thoughts was pretty difficult at times. It took a lot to hold it together at times, but I got it done and did it and it made me stronger.”
Now, there’s just one fight with Holobaugh left and Hubbard can go on to the rest of his career. For himself. For Maxx. For his wife. And for his daughter.
He can’t wait.
“I'm back now and I'm ready for round two.”
UFC 292: Sterling vs O'Malley took place live from TD Garden in Boston on August 19, 2023. See the Final Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!
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