Tom Duquesnoy praises 'strong' and 'well-prepared' Terrion Ware but thinks win was deserved

LONDON – Judging by his Twitter account, it’s safe to say that Terrion Ware believes he should have been the winner of Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 127 meeting with Tom Duquesnoy:

But Duquesnoy, who took scores of 29-28, 29-28 and 30-27 for the unanimous-decision win, will have to respectfully disagree there.

Emphasis on “respectfully.”

“The guy is strong, ready, well-prepared,” Duquesnoy said after the main-card bantamweight bout, which streamed live on UFC Fight Pass from The O2 in London. “Good chin. Honored to fight against him. He was very, very, very ready. He gave me a lot of problems, and (it) forces me to be even better for the next fight. But I think I did the job well. I won that fight. I really do think.”

While Duquesnoy (16-2 MMA, 2-1 UFC)  “definitely” believes he earned the nod over Ware (17-8 MMA, 0-3 UFC), he will concede that it was a close one. And that makes it two close battles in a row for the 24-year-old French prospect, who’d most recently had a four-finish winning streak end with a split-decision loss to Cody Stammann at UFC 216.

Considering the “Fire Kid” first came into the UFC riding the hype of 12-bout stretch that featured nine finish wins, one could see the difficult consecutive battles as somewhat of a trying time. But rather than lament the finish-less dry spell, he seems more interested in praising his competition for giving him a hard time.

“The level is high in the UFC,” Duquesnoy said. “We’re all kind of all at the same level. Just little details and mental shape does the difference during the fight. That’s what I think. …

“The guy tonight was a really tough, high-level fighter. He had never been knocked out. He’s a high-level boxer. So we have to give him credit.”

That doesn’t mean Duquesnoy believes he had a perfect display. While he was satisfied with certain things, there are others he knows could have been done better – and those are the ones he’s interested in discussing with his team to come back improved for what will be his fourth UFC outing.

When that will happen, though, will be decided later. For now, Duquesnoy is thinking about the 10-15 days of vacation that await him, perhaps in the Greek Islands. And then he has this one small thing to handle before switching his focus back to the face-punching part of his occupation.

“I need to finish my first book, concerning my first MMA preparation,” Duquesnoy said. “It will be released soon in France. So I have to finish that. Right after, I’ll be back in training and focusing on all the things from that fight.”

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 127, check out the UFC Events section of the site.