Joseph Benavidez Quotes OutKast in Social Media Post After UFC Norfolk Defeat

Joseph Benavidez struggled to find the right words to say after his latest bid to capture championship gold fell short in the UFC Fight Night 169 headliner on Saturday night.

An incidental clash of heads caused blood to gush from Benavidez’s head in the second stanza of his 125-pound title clash with Deiveson Figueiredo at Chartway Arena in Norfolk, Va., and moments later, the Brazilian capitalized by flooring his foe with powerful right hand. A few follow-up hammerfists halted the bout, and with that, Benavidez fell to 0-3 in UFC flyweight championship bouts. The flyweight throne will remain vacant for the time being, however, as Figueiredo was ineligible to win the belt after missing weight on Friday.

“I feel like this is isn’t real right now,” Benavidez said in a post-fight interview with UFC commentator Michael Bisping. “I’m in some freakin’ nightmare. I had a lot of visions of talking to you after and a lot of things that were going to happen that didn’t.

“S—t man, life’s tough like that. Everybody’s going through ups and downs everywhere. This is mine. It’s on display. Lucky to be alive, I guess, but I worked my ass off for that and it didn’t go great. Thank you guys for coming out, though.”

Benavidez was the favorite to capture flyweight gold after previous foil Demetrious Johnson left the promotion for One Championship and Henry Cejudo relinquished the belt to compete at bantamweight. Instead, the Las Cruces, N.M., native lost for just the second time in his last 11 Octagon appearances.

Given a little more time to collect his bearings, Benavidez authored a post on Instagram quoting the OutKast track “Elevators.” The message is one of resilience, as the 35-year-old veteran vows to keep moving forward in his MMA career:

We done come a long way like them slim-ass cigarettes
From Virginia, this ain't gon' stop, so we just gon' continue”

View this post on Instagram

We done come a long way like them slim-ass cigarettes From Virginia, this ain't gon' stop, so we just gon' continue

A post shared by Joseph Benavidez (@joejitsu) on Mar 1, 2020 at 8:54am PST