Kingsbury Says He Has Reinvented Himself
Posted on 25 May 2012
by MMAScoops.com Staff

Kyle Kingsbury (11-3 MMA, 4-2 UFC) told MMA Junkie he's ready for his fight at UFC 146 after his loss to Stephan Bonnar.

The two fought at UFC 139, where Bonnar won by decision after a wrestling-heavy match. At the time, Kingsbury was on a four-fight win streak and was fighting for the first time on PPV. Now he's back to the Facebook preliminary matches against fellow light heavyweight Glover Teixeira (17-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC).

Kingsbury doesn't plan on letting it happen again, as he has been working on his wrestling for six months, as well as adjusted his striking stance to a lower profile to defend takedowns. Teixeira, the Brazilian, is making his UFC debut.

On his loss to Bonnar: "It was hard being in the middle of the cage and being teabagged in north-south position and having 20,000 San Jose fans booing Bonnar, and there's just nothing I can do about it. At the end of the day, I would have done the same thing. It was a veteran move on his part to take the gameplan to the ground and work against my weaknesses. That's something you have to respect, and I've always respected Stephan."

On the drop from PPV to preliminary fights: "It's funny, you talk about the loss and what it means to you. Everybody is like, 'Yeah, it's always tough coming off of a loss,' but when you're riding momentum – I had a four-fight win streak, that was my first loss in three years – there's that tumble from moving your way up the ladder. That means more than the loss does. That hurt worse, for sure. That was my first fight on the main card on pay-per-view. I had fought on some the lower shows on TV, but that was my first fight on the main card on pay-per-view. Now I'm fighting back on Facebook. So that tumble down is definitely a harder pill to swallow than any one loss."

On working on his wrestling: "I wanted to get back in there and erase that loss as soon as possible, but at the same time, my coaches understood that I needed to improve. There was a blueprint there on how to beat me, and anybody that's smart is going to come out there and do the same thing in the next fight."

On making an honest evaluation of his skills: "You really have to take an honest assessment. You can [expletive] with everybody else, but once you sit down alone and really think about what happened, you've got to be honest with yourself. That's the only way you're going to improve and learn from it. Certainly that's something I had to do.

UFC 146 will take place on Saturday from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The main card airs on PPV after preliminary fights on FX and Facebook.