“I really don’t love when people say, ‘Oh, you just got caught,’ or, ‘It was a lucky kick,’” he said. “It was neither of those two things. This is a fight, and you get hit in a fight sometimes. You get kicked in a fight sometimes. These are just part of the things that come along with this job, and the fact that I hadn’t had to necessarily experience that yet was something that I wondered about because you always assume in the back of your mind if you fight for a long enough, this probably will happen because other than one or two guys, people lose no matter how long their undefeated streak goes for.”
Soon enough, despite the cramped circumstances, Gillespie found his way back into the gym. All anyone needs to do is look at Gillespie’s Instagram page to see the grueling workouts he makes routine. That, paired with his overall accepting behavior, allowed him to move past the fight and set his eyes on what came next.
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Gillespie said he and his team more or less figured out some tweaks they needed to make to their game planning process, and once Gillespie was able to move back to Long Island and start training again, they figured out how to put together a “really good training camp” that echoed the volume of work to which he is accustomed.
That work rate is one that often leaves Gillespie beaten down and tired. However, he’s not one to take more than one 24-hour rest period per week, shrugging off the idea of impromptu “rest and recovery” days in lieu of powering through the fatigue and natural anxieties that come up in a fighter’s life.
