Jeremy Stephens did not hide from the mess after UFC 328. The 39-year-old veteran missed weight by four pounds, got submitted by King Green in the first round, and left Newark with a historic but unwanted UFC record attached to his name.
Green finished Stephens with a rear-naked choke at 4:20 of round one after hurting him with strikes and forcing the fight to the mat. The loss dropped Stephens to 29-23 MMA, 15-20 UFC, making him the first fighter to reach 20 defeats inside the Octagon.
Stephens addressed the loss on Instagram and kept it blunt.
“Keep it black and white. Didn’t get it done. No excuses. I take full accountability for all of it. That’s what comes with this game and that’s what comes with walking into the fire over and over again. I know the risks every time I sign that contract. I know what I’m up against. Still, I answer the call every time. God got me. We recalibrate. We refocus. And we keep walking forward. That’s it,” Stephens wrote.
Here is Stephens’ Instagram post:
Stephens’ rough week started before fight night when he missed weight at UFC 328. It got worse once Green took over. Green’s win gave him a clean veteran finish on the same card where Sean Strickland upset Khamzat Chimaev to regain the middleweight title.
Stephens’ UFC Future Gets Harder To Read
Stephens has been a pro MMA fighter since 2005 and made his UFC debut back in 2007. That run includes wins over Rafael dos Anjos, Dennis Bermudez, and Josh Emmett, plus years of violent, fan-friendly fights at lightweight and featherweight. Nobody lasts this long in the UFC by accident.
But the numbers are getting ugly now. Stephens has only one MMA win since July 2018, and this latest return has produced losses to Mason Jones and Green. His bare-knuckle run kept him relevant, but UFC lightweight is still a brutal place for aging veterans.
Green, who moved to 35-17-1 MMA, handled the assignment cleanly. Stephens took the result without making excuses. The question now is whether the UFC sees another fight for “Lil’ Heathen” or whether this was the final Octagon walk for one of the promotion’s longest-running action fighters.
