“I definitely was insulted, and there were a handful of people that had been calling me out,” Swanson recalled. “For a long time in my career, nobody was ever calling me out, and then, all of a sudden, I seem to be the guy that people were looking like Top 15 and going, ‘Oh yeah, let’s call that guy out.’ So that kind of irritated me that it seemed to happening, like, okay, they’re picking me off as the weak link, their chance to get in the Top 15. And being the underdog as well, that irritated me. I definitely saw a lot of promise in him, and I saw a dangerous skill set but, to me, I thought everyone that had fought him didn’t fight him very smart.”
With his existing talent, a stellar standup attack and a chip on his shoulder, Swanson was going to be tough to beat in Toronto. That didn’t mean Choi wasn’t going to try, and while the scores after three rounds read 30-27, 30-27, 29-28 in favor of Swanson, this was no blowout. Choi gave as good as he got for 15 minutes, and there was enough drama and high-level action to guarantee this went down in the books as one of the best featherweight fights in UFC history. And when it was over, the two combatants had a bond only fighters understand.
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“I can say that for sure,” said Swanson. “We’ve never really been able to speak, but I feel like I ever see him, it’s a hug. I respect him. And I think that’s what’s crazy about this fight game – we give it everything we’ve got, and the person’s still standing at the end of the fight, you can’t do anything but shake their hand and give them a hug, and be like, ‘Man, okay. You’re a tough dude and we went to battle and you’re still standing and I’m still standing.’ There’s respect.”
That’s worth more than anything in this business. And when it was over, Cub Swanson and Dooho Choi had something people were talking about the next day, the next week, and still, nearly six years later.
“I knew it was kind of wild because of how the fight was going, but I didn’t know it would be what it was,” said Swanson. “I knew it was a good fight, but the next week, I think I traveled to another UFC, and the amount of people that came up to me that night at the fight and then the next weekend when I went to another fight, and it wasn’t just fans, but fighters and coaches, and that’s what I always gauge it off of – my peers. Fans will just tell you whatever you want to hear because they’re just excited to meet you. But when coaches and fighters are going out of their way to tell you how great of a fight it was, that’s when I was like, man, people really liked this one.”
We still do.
