Steve Garcia is still chewing on the Diego Lopes knockout from UFC Freedom 250 at the White House, but the part that really hit him came once the lights were off and the family call came home. In a new video interview, Garcia said telling his young son that dad did not win hurt worse than the knockout itself.
Garcia had not lost in four years before Lopes caught him in that wild White House opener. His son had only known the winning version of the featherweight, which made the post-fight conversation hit Garcia hard.
“When I got home, my son asked me, ‘Daddy, did you win?’ I hadn’t lost in four years, so he doesn’t know what it’s like for dad to lose. I was like no, dad didn’t win. He started crying. It broke me. It hurt me.”
Garcia said he answered that moment by going back to the same lesson he gives his son during games: losses are part of it, but the response has to be immediate.
“If you lose, what does daddy always tell you? He said, ‘try again.’ Exactly, so daddy has to try again.”
Garcia tied the loss to a lesson for his son rather than an excuse. He admitted the fight got away from him after a strong start, and that the brawl with Lopes was exactly where the night turned into a bad trade for him.
Watch Garcia talk through the son conversation below.
Garcia Knows Where The Diego Lopes Fight Slipped Away
Garcia said he expected Lopes to meet him in the middle and make the fight ugly right away, but the early minutes played out differently. Garcia believed he was having real success before the second round turned into a close-range exchange. He said that is where his Albuquerque instincts took over.
“We got into this brawl and my Albuquerque showed. I was like we’re just doing this. He hit me with a shot, it wasn’t clean, but it definitely threw me off balance. I feel like I should have been more technically sound defensively in that moment and I could have clinched, I could have done a few different things.”
Garcia said the knockdown did not immediately feel like the end, which is part of why the finish still bothers him.
“When I got dropped, in my head I’m like I’m good, I’m good, I’m good. I did that for like two or three seconds. There’s a few things I probably should have done and I didn’t do it. I’m not far off. I was winning that fight until I wasn’t.”
The White House card also threw a weird curveball at both openers. Garcia and Lopes were first up, then weather delays interrupted the warmup rhythm before the walk. Garcia did not pin the loss on that because Lopes had the same wait, but he made it clear the stop-start timing was another thing he needed to handle better.
“We were supposed to be starting right on time. I had warmed up and everything as needed. I felt amazing. Then right in the middle of my warmup, they’re like we’re going to cut it. We’ve got to do a 30 minute delay.”
The corner situation was different, too. Garcia had Mike Winkeljohn and Joey Villasenor with him, but Greg Jackson was not there. Garcia said Jackson’s calmer, more methodical voice is usually part of the balance with Winkeljohn’s fire, and he felt that missing piece after the first round when adjustments were there to be made.
“Having Greg there, I talked to him already, and I know he would have pulled my head out of my ass because we would have had this conversation mid-round. When I got back to the stool, I would have told him what I’m seeing, what’s going on and he would have just kind of figured it out.”
Garcia also shared this fight-week post from the White House card.
The loss snapped a serious run, but Garcia is not planning to stay quiet. In the same clip, he pointed to Jean Silva as a possible comeback fight and said Arnold Allen is another name that would interest him.
“I think a fun fight would be like Jean Silva. I would love that fight with Jean Silva.”
Then he flipped that pain into a warning for the rest of the featherweight division.
“Everybody has it coming. I was telling people, and excuse my language, but everybody’s f*cked. Everybody’s getting it. I don’t know who else they want to give me, but I tasted what it’s like to be at the very top and I want more of it.”
Garcia still believes the Lopes fight showed he can hang near the sharp end of 145 pounds, even if the ending was a rough one. The next booking will say plenty about how UFC matchmakers view him after Lopes started eyeing new options, but Garcia’s message is not complicated. He lost, had the hardest conversation of his four-year winning run, and now wants another chance near the top of the division.
