Valentin On Rediscovering MMA Joy After 0-3 Start

Robert Valentin stopped listening to the noise after losing his first three UFC fights.

The Swiss middleweight faces Dusko Todorovic at UFC Belgrade on Saturday inside Belgrade Arena, and for the first time since joining the promotion, Valentin sounds like he has rediscovered what drew him to the sport. His Octagon career started poorly — stopped by Ryan Loder in The Ultimate Fighter 32 finale, held down for fifteen minutes by Torrez Finney, then crushed in one minute by Ateba Gautier at UFC 319. All within a year. At 0-3, a release felt inevitable.

How Valentin Broke Through The Pressure

The hype coming off TUF became a burden, Valentin told UFC.com. He believed the praise too much and lost the joy of training. The gym felt like a stage with too many eyes on him. Eventually, he had enough. "But then, I finally said, 'F—k all of you guys. I don't give a f—k what you think,'" Valentin said, per MMA Mania. "I was a kid dreaming of this. Dreaming about being in the UFC, dreaming of fighting in front of millions of people, and that's what I'm going to do."

That shift, paired with joining a more structured team, helped him claim his first UFC win and keep his career alive. More than that, it brought back what he had been missing. He found his love for the sport again, he said, comparing the UFC to any other job — if you love it, you succeed, but pressure creates a blockade. He weathered the storm. Now he is just enjoying everything.

Valentin enters Saturday night with momentum for the first time in his UFC run. He promised the same violent, all-gas style people expected when he first joined the promotion. UFC Belgrade airs Saturday night.

Reported via:

• MMA Mania — UFC Belgrade’s Robert Valentin finally found his love for MMA again – ‘Had to weather the storm’