According to his head coach, former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold has reinvented himself for his upcoming fight against fellow former champ Chris Weidman.
Rockhold is coming off a devastating loss to Yoel Romero in the main event of UFC 221 in Australia. If you recall, Rockhold was originally slated to fight Robert Whittaker for the middleweight title at the event. However, the promotion had to make changes to the card once Whittaker pulled out with an injury. Thus, the UFC booked Rockhold vs. Romero for the interim title.
Weidman and Rockhold first met at the UFC 194 pay-per-view event where Rockhold scored a TKO win over Weidman in the main event to win the title. His head coach Javier Mendez stated in a recent interview that Rockhold has reinvented himself while preparing for this upcoming fight at UFC 230.
“He’s going to come out a better version of himself,” Mendez told BJPenn.com Radio. “And Luke is reinventing himself all the time. And he has a lot more confidence going into this. We’ll see what happens, but to me it’s always one of those situations where whoever screws up first. They’re both such great fighters.
We have less to be concerned as far as screwing up. So on that edge, I give it to us. So am I favoring Luke? Absolutely. What will happen? Who knows? But I favor Luke 100 percent.”
The UFC 230 pay-per-view event is set to take place on Saturday, November 3, 2018 at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, New York City.
The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.
