LAS VEGAS – Court McGee is back in the UFC win column and part of it was thanks to his neighbor.
The Season 11 winner of “The Ultimate Fighter” snapped a three-fight losing skid Saturday at UFC Fight Night 188 in Las Vegas. McGee (20-10 MMA, 9-9 UFC) defeated Brazil’s Claudio Silva (14-3 MMA, 5-2 UFC) on the preliminary card, winning the bout by unanimous decision.
It’s a been a tough road to McGee’s ninth victory in the UFC. The 36-year-old entered UFC Fight Night 188 without a win in almost three years and on a run of 1-5 in his previous six bouts. Many considered UFC Fight Night 188 a must-win situation for McGee, and he was able to get the job done thanks to his neighbor – Mariana Herd.
“She just lost her husband, and I love these two. They’re some of my favorite neighbors,” McGee told reporters at the UFC Fight Night 188 post-fight news conference. “We would do these old school workouts in my front yard, and him and his wife would come out and cheer, or Russ would come out and say, ‘What’s all the heckling? What are you guys doing?’ And he’s like, ‘Just kidding.’
“So he passed away, and we would go visit and and hang out and she’s like, ‘You know, you’re such a nice guy and you help out so many people. I just don’t get how you step in there and fight people.’ And we got into this conversation, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I get to be mean for 15 minutes.’ But it’s not mean enough. It’s like 10 years ago, eight years ago I was ‘The Crusher,’ and I would be able to flip that switch and get those submissions in the second or third rounds and crush dudes’ souls. I could feel them quit, and I knew I had them. And it’s like I started matching, and I would match the guys no matter if they were the Robert Whittakers or somebody new who had 10 straight wins.
“And she said, ‘Maybe you need to bring out that stage character, ‘The Crusher.’ And I kind of said a little prayer before I went out there, and I was like, ‘Let me switch into that guy that’s mean, that’s coming out to hurt this guy.’ And I did it.”
McGee gave a shout out to his neighbor immediately after the fight in his post-fight interview on the UFC Fight Night 188 broadcast. He thanked Mariana for motivating him to live up to his fight nickname.
McGee plans to build off his win over Silva and start fighting like his old self again.
“I think I have to,” McGee said. “It worked because I would get in the flow of things, and I’ve had such great partners, great coaching and great teammates, and my life is really fulfilling and really good. I have a great relationship with my two boys, and me and my wife are really happy. I’ve been speaking quite a bit, and I just had to find whatever helped me to become ‘The Crusher,’ and it came back in tonight. It worked, and I’m going to carry that into the next one and the next one.”
How Court McGree’s elderly neighbor brought out ‘The Crusher’ in him at UFC Fight Night 188
