“It (the loss) needed to happen for me to make that decision,” he said. “Had I won again, I still would have been like, okay, I can do this by myself. And when you get to a certain level in life, especially in fighting, especially the championship level when you’re fighting for a title, you need people around you, you need the right energy, the right space. Nothing against my last gym, it’s a great gym, it just wasn’t the gym for me.”
So now this citizen of the world finds himself in Las Vegas. Next stop, New York City, a stone’s throw from where he spent some of his formative time in Brooklyn after moving to the States from Jamaica. Sure, he hasn’t seen the Big Apple since seventh grade, but fighting in Madison Square Garden does mean a lot to him.
“It definitely does, a hundred percent,” he said. “I haven’t been back to New York since I was a kid, so that’s a big jog down memory lane. There’s a lot of memories from when I was there.”
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That doesn’t mean he’s going to be busy reminiscing while Vergara is trying to take his head off his shoulders. The way Osbourne sees it, they’ll be plenty of time for that after the fight.
“You can’t let the hype of the fight get you carried away and get you distracted, but after the fight you can appreciate that stuff,” he said. “You can’t be focused on the building and the people and everything else when the only thing that matters is you getting your hand raised. There’s levels to being a professional fighter. When you first come to the game, yeah, it’s awesome and amazing. And don’t get me wrong – I cherish and appreciate fighting at the Garden. That’s a dream come true and I feel so blessed and I’m so grateful. But, at the same time, I have to stay grounded. When I win my fight, then I can appreciate it even more and be celebratory.”
