Derek Brunson feels that he doesn’t get much respect.
The UFC veteran has been fighting for over 10 years and scored impressive wins over former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Lyoto Machida, former WEC Middleweight Champion Chris Leben, and former LFA Middleweight Champion Ian Heinisch; however, many still counted out Brunson going into his fight against Edmen Shahbazyan last weekend.
Shahbazyan entered the middleweight bout hot with a 10-fight winning streak that includes victories over Brad Tavares and Jack Marshman. While the California native gave it his all on Saturday night, Brunson’s experience inside the octagon played a strong factor in the 36-year-old getting the win over Shahbazyan.
Following the fight, Brunson admitted to feeling better after getting the victory over Shahbazyan; however, Brunson did express his frustration over not being respected in the division (Transcript courtesy of MMA Junkie):
“It definitely feels better,” Brunson said when asked if there was any added excitement in victory given the circumstances. “I had to get off social media all week. I’d kind of glance at it and turn away. I wasn’t reading no Facebook or Instagram. Everybody was, ‘You’re going to get dogged. You’re going to get beat up real bad.'”
“I’m not given enough respect in this division,” Brunson said. “I’m OK with earning it. There have been fights where I’ve had the flu. I went to the doctor to nurse myself back to health – and five days later to fight. … We had a hurricane in North Carolina, and I was home with the family, making sure everything was OK. I had to fight 10 days after that when I wasn’t training for two weeks.
Brunson praises what Shahbazyan’s accomplished in his career thus far; however, he feels that MMA should stop overhyping fighters:
“I don’t think MMA should be building,” Brunson said. “You look at the NFL (or) NBA – if you’re good, you play. MMA needs to stop building fighters up. If you’re good enough, you’re good enough to fight. You fight whoever is close in the rankings. You go out there and earn it. There should be no favoritism or, ‘Oh, look at him. He’s young.’ If you’re earning your spot, yeah, fight somebody tough. Keep working your way up.
“He went out there and knocked Tavares out. Tavares is no joke. Yeah, he earned this fight. Everybody had me getting smoked until I go out there and get a victory. Man, everybody’s got to earn their stripes. He earned the fight, and I went out there and earned the victory.