Mark Godbeer not pleased with UFC 209 display, but felt nerves since 'back was against the wall'

LAS VEGAS – Mark Godbeer felt the pressure as he walked into the octagon at Saturday’s UFC 209. And his performance, he says, was a reflection of that.

In spite of the relief after edging out an exhausted Daniel Spitz (5-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) for his first UFC win, Godbeer (12-3 MMA, 1-1 UFC) wasn’t particularly satisfied with his first fight to ever go the distance.

“I don’t think it was the greatest performance,” Godbeer said. “A lot of it was because of nerves. Right up until the point when I walked out into the arena, I was fine, I was up, ready to go.

“As I walked in from the curtain to the cage, the adrenaline dump I had, I was like, ‘Man.’ I felt like I’d done three rounds as I stepped in the cage. But I had to dig deep.”

The heavyweight bout was part of the preliminary card of Saturday’s UFC 209 event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. It aired on FS1 following additional prelims on UFC Fight Pass and ahead of a main card on pay-per-view.

Godbeer, who’d most recently been choked out by Justin Ledet in his UFC debut, believes he both “could” and “should” have finished the clearly exhausted Spitz at some point in their fight. And that, as his nine-knockout record shows, does seem to be his usual preference.

But the nerves, the 33-year-old Brit said, never went away. And, feeling the weight of an octagon loss, he opted to bypass his finishing instincts to avoid unnecessary risks in a division where a properly landed blow can end it all.

“If I’m honest, going into this fight I did feel like my back was against the wall,” Godbeer said. “I felt it was a do-or-die situation. So the whole time going into this fight, I was carrying weight on my shoulders. You look at my record, I am a finisher – I do knock people out.

“So I do look to knock people out, and in those situations, when I hit him, when I see him wobbling and stuff, normally I’m on him like a wasp. I’m all over him and I finish. But this particular fight, I knew if I rush in and he hits me once, being a heavyweight, and I’m out, I thought that’s it.”

For more from Godbeer after his first UFC win, check out the video above.

And for complete coverage UFC 209, check out the UFC Events section of the site.