Yair Rodríguez talks about his first defeat in UFC

After his first defeat in UFC against Frankie Edgar, the native of Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, made a live stream on his social media talking about his recovery and explaining what happened from his point of view.

"I was serious when I said I wanted to knock out Frankie Edgar. I believe I came to this world and to this company to do something that no one had done before, and I don't say it in an arrogant way. For one reason or another, things didn't go as planned," Yair Rodríguez said in the message to his followers.

About his performance in the fight, he declared: "I think I was handling the distance well but he took me to the fence, controlled me, and took me down. He was attacking all the time and caused damage to my eye that I felt from the beginning. I tried submissions and tried to get him off me, but he had a lot of pressure on me. I thought about defending myself, I moved my head as much as I could and tried more submissions. On the screen, I saw my eye and thought 'be careful'."

At the end of the first round, 'Pantera's' eye had already received too much damage, but he went out to try to change the situation: "For the second round, I was a bit more cautious. The time I was on top, there was no danger, but he took me to the ground and for a moment, I thought I had him in the kneebar, but he escaped. He's a fighter with a lot of experience and I couldn't do anything, I couldn't finish him with the submission I had been practicing," he confessed.

When the second round ended, Yair declared to have completely lost visibility in his left eye, but he wanted to keep fighting, so he told the doctors the opposite: "With the damage in my eye, for the third round, I couldn't see anything, but I told the doctors that I could. They stopped the fight, I think it was a very good medical decision because my eye was damaged and health comes first. It's a good lesson to have fought against someone with so much experience, this will only make me better and I'm still motivated."

'Pantera' planned to ask for an opportunity to fight for the 145-pound title, but the result was not favorable: "My plan was to go win, go back to Chicago, keep training, and go to Brazil to ask for the belt, but things happen and it's all about how you take things. I am learning from the defeat and I hope it doesn't happen to me again. I am a champion, and the fact that I lost the fight doesn't mean I'm not a winner. Mentally, I still see myself as someone who is good because this is everything I dedicate myself to. My life is based on improving, even though the work that was done wasn't enough, there's only learning left. We move forward, this doesn't stop here." After this statement, he thanked everyone for their support in his career.