Don
Madge doesn’t dread struggle week anymore.
When he started his profession as a light-weight, that wasn’t essentially
the case for the South Africa native, who will face Neiman
Gracie at
PFL 6 in an everyday season bout at welterweight on Friday night time.
After scoring a first-round submission of Brennan
Ward on April 19, Madge sits atop the 170-pound standings
heading into the second common season occasion.
“Ah man, the load cuts to the light-weight have been like savage,”
Madge mentioned throughout a PFL media day. “I’ve form of spoken about it
now that I’ve made the transfer up, however I’d do possibly [26 to 28
pounds] in every week, you understand, like, silly quantities… However yeah man,
the transfer as much as welterweight [was] one thing that I have been like
juggling with for a very long time. I simply by no means felt like I wanted to
do it as a result of I used to be nonetheless profitable at light-weight.
“Particularly for this the season format, we struggle so usually that
doing these gigantic weight cuts simply do not make any sense. I really feel
unimaginable at welterweight, my physique’s carrying the load properly. I
undoubtedly do not feel undersized towards another guys, so that is
undoubtedly the place I will be staying.”
Whereas the trials of competing a number of instances in a season make
excessive weight slicing much more tough, Madge believes there’s
one thing to be mentioned for feeling wholesome it doesn’t matter what format a
fighter competes in.
“I believe numerous fighters might probably soar up a division — and
numerous fighters do — and so they do rather a lot higher,” Madge mentioned. “And
it is due to that feeling wholesome, with the ability to like really feel your
coaching camps and really feel your struggle weeks and never stroll round like a
skeleton and a zombie all day.
“It is made an enormous distinction to me and even similar to my enjoyment
of struggle week — often I f—king hate it, however I have been having fun with it
rather a lot now, so I am actually, actually proud of the choice I
made.”
The one factor that might make struggle week much more gratifying is a
victory over Gracie. Madge received’t deny that there’s an added enchantment
to beating somebody with that prestigious identify.
“Yeah, I imply, it is unimaginable. That is truly why I used to be completely happy
with the matchup,” Madge mentioned. “Clearly stylistically I believe it
makes a very good matchup for me but additionally simply the legacy components
of being that it is the household that began MMA, mainly. So to be
capable of step within the cage with him and share that second with every
different I believe will probably be unimaginable.”
