Kevin Lee plans to stay at welterweight

Last month, in the main event of UFC Rochester, long-time UFC lightweight contender Kevin Lee made his debut in the welterweight division opposite a fellow former lightweight in Rafael dos Anjos. Unfortunately for Lee, this first welterweight bout didn’t go as planned, as he was submitted by his foe in the fourth round.

While Lee didn’t get the result he wanted in this fight, however, he says his preparations went very well.

“The result wasn’t exactly what I wanted, and I was upset at myself for a few days,” Lee told The Body Lock. “In terms of what went wrong, everything in the lead-up was clicking in an almost eerie way.

“Before the fight in the locker room, I was seeing certain things. You know when you’re on your way to work, and you hit every green light. It was kind of like that type of feeling I was having. I felt like everything was coming together right, and my confidence was boosting up so much. The warm-up was perfect; everything was perfect. So when it didn’t go my way, it was discouraging. I didn’t know necessarily what I was doing wrong.”

Kevin Lee continued, sprinkling in some praise for his wily foe Rafael dos Anjos, who he admits outsmarted him in the cage.

“What surprised me was how smart he was. He beat me tactically more than anything,” Lee stated. “When I was going, he wasn’t doing. He’s letting me burn out my energy then he took his moment when I made the last mistake.”

Despite this setback, Kevin Lee seem to feel that he is better suited for the welterweight division than he is for the lightweight division, and intends to stay put for the time being.

“Yeah I think so,” he said when asked if he was sticking to welterweight. “I think it’s right.”

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 6/17/2019.