Neil Magny ‘Right Back in the Mix’ After UFC 248 Win, Has Sights Set on Michael Chiesa
It had been a long time since the MMA world had seen Neil Magny fight inside the Octagon and even longer since it seen him win.
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Magny was last seen getting knocked out in the fourth round by Santiago Ponzinibbio in November 2018, and the Elevation Fight Team representative said the last 18 months were among the toughest of his life.
“It feels great to finally get back in there and win,” Magny said.
“Over the last year now, I’ve been finding myself in a real down
place. I’ve put that all behind me now and came out on top tonight,
so it feels great. In a weird way, this time off has been a
blessing. It allowed me to spend a lot of time with family, even
grow my family back at home.
“I also made some changes in my camp and made sure we were doing everything as well as possible,” he added. “We went back and looked at my last five fights, the wins and losses, and really looked at where I could improve. One of the biggest things we found was foot positioning, I feel like we addressed that well tonight.”
Magny adopted a different approach against Lee on Saturday, as the reinvigorated welterweight fought with a renewed purpose.
“Another thing [I added] is pressure,” he said. “I wanted to sit back and calculate a little bit more, so it’s been improvement all around.”
The welterweight landscape has changed considerably since Magny last competed, and the 32-year-old has designs on climbing right back into contention at 170 pounds.
“I think this gets me right back in the mix,” he said. "The division has been shaken up a bit since I’ve been gone, but I showed tonight that I can jump back in there with the best of them, so I’d love to jump back in there with Michael Chiesa.”
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