“Fighting is supposed to be fun,” said Osbourne, an assistant schoolteacher who doesn’t look at his new gig in the Octagon as the ticket to fame, fortune and all that comes with it. Instead, his goals are loftier than that.
“UFC is a platform for me to help a lot of different kids and a lot of different people that came from nothing,” he said. “So when I have that, I can use that to be able to motivate and help. One of my goals is to open community centers, and there’s a lot of stuff I want to do with my community by being champion. I’m thinking way bigger than what’s inside the Octagon.”
That doesn’t just give him something to fight for; it makes him a tough man to beat.
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“The kids mean everything to me,” said Osbourne. “They’re the reason why I fight. If people are coming to fight me just to fight for a check, there’s no way in hell they’re gonna beat me because I’m fighting for more than a check.”
So while there are some good storylines surrounding Osbourne’s debut, from his dual-life as educator and fighter, to the fact that he’s fighting someone in Kelleher who just got beaten by his teammate Montel Jackson, not to mention that he’s doing it all on a huge event headlined by the return of Conor McGregor against Donald Cerrone, Osbourne isn’t distracted by any of it. The way he sees it, he was built for this sort of thing.
“Five years from now, people are gonna say, ‘Oh man, McGregor fought on Ode’s card.’”
