His eyes are open. Steve Garcia’s brain hasn’t even properly reset to his surroundings. It’s the middle of the night, and even in his subconscious state, his mind was working, obsessing about one thing.
“The first thought that’s in my head is, ‘You lost,'” Garcia recently told MMA Junkie. “I hadn’t lost in four years or something like that. I was joking around. I was like, ‘I got tired of winning, so I just needed to lose.'”
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It’s been almost three weeks now, and Garcia (19-6 MMA, 8-3 UFC) still hasn’t gotten over his June 14 first-round TKO loss to Diego Lopes at UFC Freedom 250 at the White House. He’s not sure he ever will. But he’s determined to learn from it.
“I guess I just needed that,” Garcia said. “I’ll tell you what. It definitely lit a fire under my ass. I got some things and it’s almost like tunnel vision at this point. I just want to feel a win again and I want to be able to prove to everybody that… you know what? There’s a reason they asked me to go to the White House. I was undeniable. I still believe that I’m undeniable. There are a few things I’ve got to change, a few things I’ve got to critique, and like I said, I’m not far off.”
Garcia has long been a fighter whose greatest strength is not linear development, but rather the ability to bounce back and learn from adversity. He plans on doing this again. It was a big stage, fighting a two-time title challenger, never mind the setting, if that’s even possible. Garcia admits he grappled in the event’s aftermath with the idea that so many people saw him come up short.
“When people say that you’re part of history, like, ‘Yeah, you’re the first person to walk out.’ But we don’t forget,” Garcia said. “These are all the people in my corner. These are people who are trying to comfort me in moments like this. They tell me all these things, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, but that means 17 million people watched me fall.’ It’s hard because obviously I was probably a lot of people’s betting structure. They structured their betting around me. When you lose, that’s when all the negative stuff comes, and when you get the death threats, and you get a lot of the hate and stuff like that. I’m like, ‘Bro, at the end of the day, you think I wanted to lose? You think I was trying to lose? You think that was going to benefit me as much as it benefits you?’ It’s crazy when you deal with some of these things.”
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Garcia’s family are the ones who have reminded him of the opinions that actually matter, not those of the faceless trolls with six robotic followers.
“I have a beautiful wife who is just so caring and she’s literally as soon as it happens, she has access to all my social media, she just muted everything,” Garcia said. “She’s like, ‘Steve, let’s just deal with what you’re having to deal with right now. Let’s not worry about social media.'”
Perhaps the most impactful interaction in the wake of the defeat was thanks to a six-year-old boy. Garcia’s first few moments with his son after the fight taught him the most – despite being the one who taught the life lesson.
“My son is like, ‘Daddy, did you win?’ And I had to tell him no,” Garcia said. “I haven’t lost in four years, so all he knows is me winning. He’s six. I get home, and I told him I lost, and he started crying. Dude, aw man. That ruined me for a second. I had a teaching moment there, because I taught him how to win. Now, I’ve got to teach him how to lose. I was like, ‘When we lose, what do we say?’ And he said, ‘We try again.’ I was like, ‘Exactly. Daddy’s just got to try again, right?’ He said, ‘Daddy, you try again.’ I said, ‘I’m going to try again. Right now, I’ve got to heal up a little bit, and then Daddy is going to get back in there.'”
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With a “try again” attitude and few injuries, Garcia without a doubt wants another fight on the calendar before the time 2027 rolls around. A cultured member of the UFC featherweight division, Garcia is already playing matchmaker and he has two names in mind for Madison Square Garden in November.
“I doubt it’ll happen, but I told everybody: I want Jean Silva at MSG,” Garcia said. “I think that would be such a fun fight. If not, maybe an Arnold Allen. I think that’s suitable. Those seem like fun fights to me that stick out immediately. Jean Silva lost to Diego Lopes, too. But he did get a win back, so I’ll give him that, and it was against Arnold Allen. I’m like, ‘Maybe just give me Arnold Allen, and we can run it after that.’ I even kind of threw out (Lerone) Murphy, too. Like I said, I’m not scared of anybody. Everybody is in reach. I know that. I believe that. Like I said, I was able to go in there with the No. 2 guy in the world and win a round or a round-and-a-half if you want. I know what happened, trust me. I know what happened, but I’m close. Let me fine-tune some things, and I’ll be back.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: ‘Try again’: Steve Garcia opens up about UFC White House loss and who he wants next
