George W. Bush was president. Joe Rogan was the “Fear Factor” host. YouTube didn’t exist and neither did any UFC division below 170 pounds. Such was the world in which Cub Swanson made his MMA debut.
So imagine still being here, fighting in the UFC a full 20 years later, and some guy who made his UFC debut in the empty Apex days of peak pandemic tries to come for your legacy. You probably heard about this already. Joaquin Buckley, a UFC welterweight with fewer total fights than Swanson has wins, used the robust power of the modern-day internet to pick a fight with Swanson after the latter expressed skepticism that Buckley could, as he claimed, knock out Georges St-Pierre in his prime.
Swanson didn’t think that his would be in any way a controversial statement. He’s never been the type of fighter to go around beefing with people on the internet — especially not people outside his own weight class. But as someone who shared a training room with St-Pierre at times and got to see the former two-division UFC champ at work, he also felt like a reality check was in order.
“I’ve trained side-by-side with GSP,” Swanson told Yahoo Sports this week. “I’ve seen him getting ready for fights. I’ve been in the room when people actually tried to beat him — guys who were much better fighters, in my opinion — and I saw how that went. So for some guy to say he could do it, it just sounded stupid to me.”
Buckley’s response to this was to produce an entire video attacking Swanson’s career and legacy. He claimed Swanson had never been ranked in the UFC. (Swanson was actually ranked at featherweight right from the launch of the UFC rankings and stayed ranked for another six years.) He criticized Swanson for never “even smell[ing]” a UFC title. (Debatable, though Swanson was among the top contenders at various points in both his UFC and WEC careers.)
The part that’s true is that Swanson never won or fought for a title.
“Not once in my entire career,” Swanson himself is quick to point out. “I never fought for a title at any level.”
But is that the only way we know to judge a career in this sport? Is it purely title shots and title victories, both of which are always subject to some mixture of timing and luck and opportunities not entirely within one’s own grasp?
As will happen after two decades in any job, Swanson’s perspective on his own career has shifted over time. It’s not just the fights he won that make him proud now.
“I never turned down a fight in the UFC,” he said. “I fought everyone they asked me to fight. They would literally tell me sometimes, ‘We think this guy is going to fight for a title, will you fight him?’ I always said yes. And beyond that, I don’t think my career should be knocked down, because look at my performances.”
Between his days in the WEC and UFC, Swanson received 10 Fight of the Night bonuses. That doesn’t include his other performance bonuses, such as Knockout of the Night for a 2012 win over future UFC lightweight champ Charles Oliveira, or the many Fight of the Year lists he was featured on for his 2016 win over Doo-ho Choi.
But that night against “The Korean Superboy” is special for other reasons, too. It’s also the night Swanson found out he was going to be a father. Now he can’t think about that fight without remembering how, somewhere around 4 a.m., when his teammates and coaches had finally cleared out and the celebrations had died down, his wife told him that she was pregnant.
For the people who live it, this is what a career in fight sports actually looks like. It’s not just the wins and losses or the titles they did or didn’t lay claim to. It’s all the other stuff about who you are as a person and an athlete that people remember.
Julie Kedzie, Swanson’s former teammate at Jackson Wink MMA in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will never forget the day he took her to the hospital and waited with her after a particularly frustrating injury in training. While she stewed in anger and anxiety, he sat by her side and offered his calm, reassuring perspective as, even then, a veteran of the sport.
“I doubt he even remembers that, but it cemented in me that he was someone I could trust in the gym and in the sport,” Kedzie said. “He was and has been, in every interaction I had with him, insanely kind and considerate and funny, without ever being a creeper or making me feel less than as a female fighter. It was one of those moments where I realized how great a person Cub was.”
Another teammate, Isaac Vallie-Flagg, called Swanson “a great fighter and a better man.” Beyond the performances in the cage were all the little moments in the gym that no one but your teammates see.
Cub Swanson, a veteran in the world of MMA, has always carried himself in a manner that commands respect. Despite the ever-changing landscape of the sport, Swanson remains steadfast in his commitment to honoring those who came before him.
At 40 years old, Swanson is nearing the end of his fighting career. He now devotes much of his time to coaching and mentoring the next generation of fighters at the UFC Gym in Costa Mesa. His upcoming fight against Andre Fili at UFC 303 serves not just as a personal goal, but as an opportunity to impart his knowledge and experience to his students.
As Swanson reflects on his own journey in MMA, he hopes that his legacy will be defined by more than just his record in the octagon. He understands the importance of passing down his wisdom to those who will follow in his footsteps, ensuring that the sport continues to evolve and grow.
In the end, Swanson’s impact on the sport goes beyond wins and losses. His dedication to teaching and guiding the next generation is a testament to his true legacy in MMA. sentence: Please rewrite the sentence so that it is more clear and concise.