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Adrian Yanez Is Searching For More
Bantamweight Looks To Claim Victory Against Vinicius Salvador At UFC Fight Night: Barboza vs Murphy.
As one of the more mature young men you’ll ever meet, Adrian Yanez has always appeared to be someone who has things figured out. So it’s really no surprise that when he turned 30 last November, he had “that talk” with himself.
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“Oh, yeah, I definitely had that talk with myself (laughs), and I realized I have a lot for being 30 and, honestly, no college degree, nothing, and I've been able to provide for myself. But looking at the future, I was like, I have to do a lot more. And it's one of those things that I'm looking at. If it was just me, I'd be happy. I'd be riding off in the sunset, but I have a family I’ve got to make sure that I still provide for. So I'm looking at all these things and I'm like, all right, there's a lot more that needs to be done on my end. I’ve got a lot of goals I still need to hit, and I have big aspirations, not just for myself, but for my family.”
That family is going to be growing this fall with the arrival of a second child, and as Yanez returns to the Octagon this Saturday to face Brazil’s Vinicius Salvador, he does so on the heels of the first two-fight losing streak of his pro career. So if there’s some urgency in his step these days, it’s understandable, and he’s not shy to admit it, posting on social media that he had gotten too comfortable after racing out to a 5-0 start in the UFC that included four knockouts and five post-fight performance bonuses.
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“I'll always do the work that's in front of me,” Yanez explained. “I go work with my coaches and would always do the work. But there's a point in time where I got comfortable and stopped doing as much homework. The best way I could explain it is back in school, I'm doing all the work in school, but they sent me back home with homework and I just wouldn't do it. And that's the reason I'd be having failing grades. So that's where I got too comfortable in 2023. Of course, I trusted my coaches, but again, I wasn't doing my due diligence and pulling my weight instead of just having everybody else do it for me.”
The result was a 2023 campaign that saw him drop back-to-back fights to fellow bantamweight contenders Rob Font and Jonathan Martinez. And while there were costly lessons to take away from both fights, Yanez took them to heart.
Adrian Yañez Fight Week Interview | UFC Fight Night: Barboza vs Murphy
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Adrian Yañez Fight Week Interview | UFC Fight Night: Barboza vs Murphy
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“It's just not one of those things where you only do the work while you're in the gym,” he said. “No, you have to do it all the time, especially in your fight camp. Your world has to revolve around that fight because there's big implications in this fight. And going into that Jonathan Martinez fight, I didn't watch much film. I got the basics of what he does, and he did little small little things that added up very big, and I heard back about their camp and how they spent 17-plus hours film studying me.”
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Adrian Yanez Visits NASA Space Center Houston
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“Initially, it was nerve wracking,” said Yanez. “So I had to go back and start film studying myself and see where I needed to be better. But that also lit a fire underneath my butt and honestly made me get tighter. I started working on a lot more things just on me, on my level. And I used to do this all the time. I used to go back and watch my own fights and just film study and break myself down. How would I beat me? What would I do if I was the other guy? I used to do that religiously. And again, it goes back to getting comfortable. I got way too comfortable. So once I got back to it and started watching myself and watching my fights, it was one of those things where I was nervous, but once I started implementing it into what I do in training, I was like, oh, okay, well, it doesn't make me nervous anymore. And I started watching the other guys fighting. Okay, now I know what my tool set can beat that guy, that guy, that guy. So it was nerve wracking until I actually started working on it and I was like, oh, man, this is going to be fun.”
There’s the key. Yanez said the “F” word. In this business, fun isn’t something you get too often, but if you can find it here and there, well, that can make all the difference. And Adrian Yanez is having fun again, which usually means it won’t be fun for his opponent on fight night.
“Fighting, for me, has always been that place where nothing else matters,” he said. “As soon as I step in that cage, it's just me. It clears my mind. I get to step in there and it's weird because everything else goes away. And I love that. I love that moment. I love those moments just because it's what I love to do. I love the sport and everything about it. The highs are high, and lows are low, but even in my losses, I love it because it's one of those things where you can learn and get yourself better.”
UFC Fight Night: Barboza vs Murphy took place live from UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 18, 2024. See the final Prelim and Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!
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