“Within that first minute, I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be a short night.’ And then he started putting his game plan together and I started doing things that deviated away from my game plan, and he started building momentum. He started landing shots, and instead of me re-centering myself and getting back to the game plan, I went in complete meathead mode and got angry and started to throw harder shots, putting myself out of position. And by the time I realized what I was doing, it was too late.”
At 2:57 of the first round, Font had a TKO victory and Yanez a crushing defeat. On the bright side, we now have “meathead mode” as a part of the MMA lexicon, but in all seriousness, you can tell the defeat still stings Yanez a little. And that’s understandable. But it wasn’t all bad.
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“It was a big level jump, but as short as the fight was, I realized that, hey, I belong up here. I just needed a mentality shift. So even though I lost, I knew that I just needed to change a few things. I was able to get away with certain stuff before because I had the power, some guys weren’t able to handle it, and I was able to get guys out of there. I should have fought the way I fought Davey (Grant). In that fight, I was in a position where I had to fight technical, and I couldn’t let my emotions get the best of me.”
Emotions were running high before the November 2021 bout, as Yanez’ longtime coach, Saul Soliz, passed away just a few months prior. Being in with a tough out in Grant didn’t make things any easier, but Yanez pushed through, picked up a close decision win, and a Fight of the Night bonus to boot. Now he’ll need to get that calm, cool and collected mindset back for Martinez, after a brief hiccup against Font. And while the 29-year-old has always been popular with fight fans, some folks disappear after a loss. That hasn’t really been the case with Yanez.
“I definitely saw the support,” he said. “And then also, at the same time, getting support from fellow fighters was the coolest part for me. Of course, you’re going to have those people that will constantly be in your comments and just saying some really hateful stuff and all that. But again, that’s just maybe about five percent. So, it’s like, why focus on the five percent when 95 percent of it is positive?
