Athletes
Billy Goff: 'It's Go Big Or Go Home'
Injuries Delayed Contender Series Alumnus Billy Goff's UFC Debut, But He Finally Makes His First UFC Walk At UFC Fight Night: Holloway vs The Korean Zombie
Billy Goff is amused when I tell him that I missed a digit when calling for our interview and was met by a fellow Connecticut resident who asked if he was any good.
“Yeah, he’s all right,” I said.
Goff laughs, and it’s all good vibes for the welterweight from Groton, who is finally making his UFC debut this Saturday against Yusaku Kinoshita in Singapore. “Finally” is the word because Goff has been out of action since he earned his UFC contract on Dana White’s Contender Series last August, and a year later, he’s chomping at the bit to get moving.
“It was the first surgery I've ever had,” he said of the knee injuries that put him under the knife after his first-round stoppage of Shimon Smotritsky on season six of DWCS. “So it was severely frustrating. And if you ask most fighters, they're not the type to just sit around and do nothing. So I probably pushed it too much a little early, but I’m healthy now and I'm ready to go and that's all that really matters.”
He's right, and with White including the Goff-Kinoshita bout in his “If you don’t know, now you know” series this week, the buzz is building back up for the 25-year-old, who has been keeping a low profile when it comes to being in front of the TV for MMA events every weekend.
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“It's not so much that I try to get away from it; I just don't usually care to watch it as much,” he said. “I've never really been a big sports watcher and I don't really watch too many sports. I always just prefer to do them.”
Thus far, being a participant and not an observer has worked out for him, as he enters his Octagon debut with an 8-2 pro record that includes six knockouts and a six-fight winning streak. He’s also defeated legit competition along the way, so while he wasn’t facing UFC killers night in and night out, he has been put in with opposition that could test him en route to the big show.
So when he got the call to perform against Smotritsky, he was ready.
“I try not to put too much pressure on myself the day of the fight,” he said. “That's more of an all right, we've done all the work. Now it's time to just relax and go in there and be the best version of yourself you can. I think that's the same for every fight, even if it's a championship fight; you don't want to overload your nervous system when you're trying to be the best that you can be. But in training camp up until the fight, during all the workouts, during cardio, that's when I'm telling myself that this is the most important fight of my life.”
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And he’s got one chance to get it right after traveling across the world to Singapore. If he does, he can bask in the glory for a minute. If he doesn’t, it’s a few months to sit on the result.
“It certainly adds a bit more pressure, a bit more to the moment, and it's a bit more serious,” he said of life in the fight game. “There's a lot more riding on it, and there’s pros and cons to it. It's certainly more stressful and it's more unfortunate if it doesn't work out in your favor, but when it does, it feels pretty damn good.”
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Goff is chasing that feeling he hasn’t had in over a year. That’s a long time, but he believes it will all be worth it when the smoke clears at Singapore Indoor Stadium this weekend.
“I like the competition, I like the pressure, I like walking in and all eyes are on you,” he said. “It's a huge moment and it's go big or go home.”
UFC Fight Night: Holloway vs The Korean Zombie took place live from Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore on August 26, 2023. See the Final Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!
