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“I don’t like to shy away from a challenge,” said Porter, who fought Jones in June 2008. “Bones” was 4-0 with four finishes heading into the bout. He made it five and five after facing Porter. Two months later, he was in the Octagon.
“Nobody knew who he was at the time, other than that he was this kid who was just tearing through the local scene,” said Porter of Jones. When I signed up to fight him, I think he was 2-0 and it was six weeks away from the fight. By the time we fought, his record was 4-0, so he had two other fights in that six-week span and he just crushed those guys. And I was the second to last one he crushed before the UFC called him up.”
Okay, Porter can get a pass for facing a relatively unknown Jones. But Gonzaga in a headlining bout for the Reality Fighting promotion?
“I couldn’t excuse that,” he laughs. “But I was also confident that the UFC was where I belonged and him being who he was, and being fresh out of the UFC, I was confident in my abilities. We know now that this isn’t the case, but I felt an obligation that I couldn’t say no because I had just won the title for the promotion I was fighting for. In my mind, champions don’t say no. Once you’re at the top, you have a target on your back; you don’t get to pick your fights anymore.”
Gonzaga submitted Porter in the third round of their 2011 bout and his next fight would be back in the Octagon. Porter was inactive for nearly two years before going 1-1 in Bellator, and then it would be a three-year break before he returned, determined to make a concerted run at the UFC.
He made it. Is it the ideal time, with this being in the middle of a pandemic, on short notice and with an infant at home? Absolutely not. But Porter doesn’t care. He would have taken this fight under any circumstances. Dreams don’t ask for a convenient time to show up.
“Honestly, I’m just so excited to have gotten this far and make this become a reality,” said Porter. “For the first time in my life, I have the mindset of I don’t even care if I win or lose; I just want to go out there and put on a great show because this is exactly what I’ve been working towards.”