Ryan LaFlare promises 'a brand new Ryan LaFlare' will show up at UFC Atlantic City

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Ryan LaFlare thought everything was going his way heading into UFC on FOX 25.

The native New Yorker had hundreds of friends coming to see him at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum for the fight this past July. He had T-shirts made for his fight against Alex Oliveira. He even got to sleep in his own bed the night before the fight.

All LaFlare had to do was execute when he stepped inside the octagon. But one thing kept nagging at him in those final days – he wasn’t really focused on his main job.

“I just wanted the fight to be over instead of being excited,” LaFlare, who faces Alex Garcia tonight at UFC Fight Night 128, told reporters this week.

As it turned out, the fight was over pretty quick. When LaFlare woke up, he realized he was the victim of a single punch that knocked him out cold.

Even before that terrible realization, LaFlare had made a resolution never to approach a fight the way he did. In the days that followed, he made plans to keep his word.

“I wanted to miss fighting a little bit,” LaFlare said.

LaFlare said for three months he didn’t do anything related to fighting. He spent time with his family and put his profession out of his mind. Slowly, he started to miss the gym and throwing punches.

When LaFlare (13-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) signaled his readiness to return and got a booking against Garcia (15-4 MMA, 5-3 UFC) for the featured prelim at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, he was a different man.

“I had a great camp,” LaFlare said. “I enjoyed every sparring session. I wanted to learn again, whereas I was just maintaining in the past. Now, I’m picking up new tricks, and you’re going to see a brand new Ryan LaFlare.”

LaFlare doesn’t necessarily want to take three months off between every UFC fight. At 34, he doesn’t have that kind of time to burn, and it definitely hurts his bank account not to stay active.

But the consequences of being in the wrong mindset are serious enough that LaFlare realizes the importance of getting in the right one.

“You don’t want to look at this as a job and a way to make money,” LaFlare said. “You have to be passionate about it. It’s a real fight; it’s not the WWE. If you’re in it for the wrong reasons, the wrong things can happen.

“Regardless of the outcome of my last fight, that’s the way I felt. I said, ‘Man, I’m getting a little burned out.’ It consumes my life sometimes, and I wanted to miss it and get better.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 128, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.