Newly formed UFC middleweight Paul Craig is happy at his new weight class but isn’t closing the curtains on his light heavyweight career.
On Saturday past, Craig debuted at middleweight and displayed one of his best all-round performances to date. The Scottish international stopped Andre Muniz in the second round on the UFC London main card. The win put Craig back into the win column after undergoing a two-fight losing streak. It also marked the first win under his new team, Higher Level Mixed Martial Arts.
Paul Craig feels the move to middleweight was something that perhaps should have happened before now:
“As a light heavyweight, we’ve always been, ‘Can we make middleweight? Is it something that’s achievable?’” Craig said Monday on The MMA Hour. “What we did was, we did the tests. We made sure it was possible to slim all the way down, and it worked. It’s been some adventure the last six months of my career, going from getting knocked out to rebuilding myself back up, to now becoming in the mix again at not only light heavyweight but middleweight now.”
Paul Craig Talks Middleweight Debut
The majority of Craig’s career has been spent competing at 205lbs, with the highest of highs and lowest of lows unfolding between. The Brazilian Jiu-jitsu specialist holds notable wins over the division’s former champion Jamahal Hill and former title challenger Magomed Ankalaev. Despite the high-profile wins, the 35-year-old has also faced some tough setbacks, most recently a first-round knockout loss to Johnny Walker, that ultimately made Craig take the move down to middleweight.
“We went to the [UFC] P.I., because when I was across the octagon from Johnny Walker, I looked at him and was like, ‘Whoa, he’s a specimen, isn’t he?’” Craig said. “He’s a freak of nature. He’s an outlier in the division, because he’s really, really, tall, really athletic, and he hits like a train. So we had to reassess where we fitted in the division, light heavyweight, and one of the things we said was let’s see if it’s feasible to do middleweight. We went to the P.I., the guys ran all the tests — what they found was yes, we can make middleweight, and it’s going to be safe.”
Test Cut for Paul Craig
Craig revealed after back-and-forth’s with the UFC Performance Institute, he and his team carried out a test cut, which was successful. After getting the greenlight to drop down and divining into the scientific approach, Craig says he was actually heavier on fight night than he usually was at 205lbs.
“I was really, really skinny,” Craig said. “My cheekbones, you could have grated cheese on those things, but then a few hours later, it’s amazing what the body can do. Just after a couple of liters of water, following scientific basis through the support of the P.I. … from that, we were a different animal come Saturday night, and we bounced back further than we did as a light heavyweight. Once we made the weight, I think we were 84.5 kg [186 pounds] on Friday morning, at the time of the fight we were 97 kg [213 pounds]. That’s heavier than what I was fighting Johnny Walker. I think I was 95kg [209 pounds] as a bounce back then. So you can see the benefits of doing it.
The Weight Cut
“It’s probably not the best thing to be doing at the age of 35, but you can understand why athletes do it, why guys make these huge cuts, because it’s a huge advantage, and it showed on Saturday.”
Although his middleweight debut was a night to remember, Craig isn’t completely shutting the door at 205lbs and is more than happy to leap between divisions depending on the matchups.
“Although the great success was 185, I’ve still got victories over Jamahal Hill and Ankalaev, [Nikita] Krylov as well,” Craig said. “Some really, really tough names in that division. I can still hang with these guys. What was massive in this fight here was not only was it moving to 185, that played in a positive for me, but it was also the fact that I’ve now got a coach who is a phenom at striking. So he’s passed on this knowledge to me, and that was the reason why Paul was a much better version of himself. Paul can actually strike now. He looks a little bit more confident after six months of working with James [Doolan], so six months later, what’s he going to be like? What’s his skillset going to be like for striking and takedowns?
“The reason the takedowns were so effective against Andre Muniz was because I was able to set it up with strikes, rather than take a shot, a blind shot. That’s why I think 205 is still not done, because if I can do that at 185 with six months of coaching with James Doolan, what can we do with a year coaching with James Doolan, two years coaching with James Doolan?”
Exciting Matchups
In terms of matchups, Craig is on the hunt for fights that make him want to get out of bed and put in that work.
“It depends on the UFC,” Craig said. “If the UFC comes to me and says, ‘Paul, we’ve got a really nice fight for you at 205,’ and when I say a really nice fight, I don’t care about, ‘We’ve got an easy fight for you.’ That’s not what I’m about. I’m not interested in having easy fights. What I’m interested in is having fearful fights, fights that make you wake up at night and question if you’ve done enough. They’re the fights I want.”
Who would you like to see Paul Craig fight next at middleweight? Let us know in the comments!
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
