Athletes
Josh Fremd Gets Back On The Horse
After Tough Rookie Campaign, Middleweight Sets His Sights On A Run In 2023
Josh Fremd didn’t have an easy rookie year in the UFC in 2022, but as he prepares for what he hopes will be his first Octagon win against Sedriques Dumas this Saturday, he’s looking forward and not making excuses for his defeats, especially an October submission loss to Tresean Gore.
“I did everything that you would do for a camp and all that other stuff for my last fight and I made a mental mistake,” he said. “So this game is finicky. You can do everything and still lose. I still am doing everything right outside the cage, but I just need to just go and fight.”
It’s an admirable approach that is surprisingly rare. There are legitimate excuses for losing a fight, or as UFC Hall of Famer Mark Coleman once told me, “reasons,” but more often than not, the opponent was just the better fighter on that night, and there’s no shame in that. In a competition with two people, one wins and one loses. I even joked with Fremd, giving him the option to make some excuses for the losses to Gore and Anthony Hernandez.
He wasn’t biting.
“No, no, no,” he said. “This is fighting. This stuff happens. You just got to get back on the horse.”
And back to fighting with the same style and intensity that led him to the UFC in the first place. He knows he’s got the talent to do so, but it can be hard to explain that being in the big show is a different animal, and in a sport where there are a million ways to win and lose, sometimes you’re on the wrong end of those millions.
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“It is hard to explain,” Fremd admits. “That's kind of why I just haven't. (Laughs) You can try and explain it to people, but they're not going to completely understand. Those who are close to me, I've explained it. They know what I'm about, they know that I'm a good fighter. And then other people, I heard something really cool the other day. It's like the rule of 10: three people are going to care, three people aren't going to care and four people are just going to be sitting around waiting for someone else to make a decision on who to care about and what to care about. So it doesn't matter, as long as I know what I know and the people that are close to me know who I am, that's all that matters.”
And what matters right now is making his 9-4 record into a 10-4 one by handing the 7-0 Dumas his first pro loss. That’s a lot of numbers floating around, but one Fremd never really had to deal with was having an “0” in his loss column this far into his career. And while he didn’t want to lose to Robert Gidron in his third pro fight in 2018, he does think being undefeated may be an added pressure on Dumas’ shoulders.
Josh Fremd slams Bauman and locks in the rear naked choke | FAC XII
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Josh Fremd slams Bauman and locks in the rear naked choke | FAC XII
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“I've never really been undefeated like that in my amateur or my professional career, so I wouldn't understand if he's feeling that type of pressure,” he said. “But if you're undefeated and you're the next hot prospect in the UFC, I'm sure you have some pressure on your shoulders. I never had that pressure. So that might work against him, might not.”
Regardless, Fremd doesn’t expect to put doubt in his opponent’s head early on in Las Vegas…he plans on a whole night of it.
“I plan on putting doubt in his head every second that I'm in that cage with him,” said the 29-year-old, who may be living and training with the Factory X gang in Colorado, but who still has that Pittsburgh grit running through his DNA. That allows to see things as they are, not how he, or others, want to paint them.
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“I like to think of myself as a realist,” he said. “I see where things lie and I can pretty much be honest about it. I just keep true to who I am. I'm not going to step outside that box and start making excuses and putting on a character or a front for anyone. I’m me, and I'm going to go out here and do what I got to do.”
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