Gregor Gillespie improved his spotless MMA record to 13-0 at UFC Brooklyn with a second-round TKO victory over Yancy Medeiros, but when speaking with reporters after the victory, the first thing Gillespie wanted to address was the fact that his fellow New Yorkers in attendance booing his one-sided performance:
“I think let the boos from the crowd get to me a little bit, and not like, while it was happening, but it hit me after a little bit. I’m like, man, why are they booing me, man? This is my house.”
“Guys, I know this is like a drinking crowd in Long Island, and I’m from New York, man, and I know how we are here,” Gillespie began. “We want action. We want blood. But I hear a few boos out there, and that hurt my feelings a little bit. I don’t know if you guys are booing me or if you’re booing Yancy or the lack of activity. But I’ll say this. Guys, I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve been competing at a very high level, whether it’s wrestling or fighting, for a very long time. You’ve got to trust me. I’ll get you your finish. But you’ve got to bear with me while I do what I gotta do before the finish.”
Gregor Gillespie landed 51 strikes to Medeiros’s 1 and 6 takedowns to Medeiros’s 0, followed by a finish in the second round so it’s pretty safe to say that Gillespie knew what he was doing and that there was a method behind the mundane. Gillespie went on to elaborate on the process behind the delayed finish:
“Well, hold on, man. You don’t gotta go out and swing wildly. I feel the power bar on the guy draining, right? Let me ride it. Let me ride it. Let me ride it. All right, now it’s time to ground and pound. Now, I’ve got the position where I can hit him. I didn’t have that position. He kept building back up to a four-point stance. He wouldn’t take his hand off the mat. I couldn’t knee him. Let me weigh on him. He’s carrying my weight and his weight.
“Trust me when I say I’ll get you your finish, but I have patience. I know when that time to go is. I had 20 seconds to do it, and I got it done with one second left. So, guys, just bear with me. It might not be exciting four minutes and 59 seconds out of the round, but I gave you your finish. You wanted finishes, I gave them to you, man. Five in a row now.”
Do you believe the UFC Brooklyn crowd were wrong to boo during the Gillespie/Medeiros fight?
