Ben Saunders was broke before Court McGee win

On Sunday night, the UFC returned to Phoenix, Arizona with an exciting night of fights. The second fight on the main card occurred at welterweight, where gritty veteran Ben Saunders took on The Ultimate Fighter 11 winner Court McGee.

After three rounds of action, the judges would give this fight to Saunders, though many fans seemed to think the decision should have been the other way around. From the sounds of, Saunders is very lucky the judges saw the fight the way they did, as he entered the fight in dire financial straights.

He broke down his situation post-fight, explaining that his 17 second defeat of Jacob Volkmann on the regional circuit wasn’t enough to keep him afloat during his year away from the Octagon.

His words (via MMAJunkie.com).

“I don’t like talking about my personal life and my personal business, but realistically, it’s been a year since I’ve fought,” Saunders explained. “This is what I do for a living, and that’s a long, long time to [not] make some money. Yeah, I fought Volkmann, and yeah, I won in 17 seconds. But that wasn’t a lot of money by any means. In fact, it was just possibly paying the bills off from the six to eight months that I didn’t have a job, and then I went into this fight in debt.”

Needless to say the welterweight veteran is pleased to have eked out the victory.

“I did everything I could to make a camp and be prepared and be in as best shape as possible,” he said. “With this money and this win bonus, that’s only going to allow me to get bigger and better training camp possibilities and have more focus on that and less stress. Unless you’re a fighter, you don’t understand the stresses (we) go through.

How did you score Phoenix’s Ben Saunders vs. Court McGee bout? Sound off, PENN Nation!

This story first appeared on BJPenn.com on 1/17/2017