Former champ Brian Bowles out to prove he’s relevant again in the cage
Former World Extreme Cagefighting champion Brian Bowles has been defeated only by current Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz and one of the division’s all-time greats in Urijah Faber. At 32, Bowles has competed in just 12 professional fights, so he should have plenty left in the tank.
Yet, in his own words, Bowles is “not really relevant right now.”
Missing 18 months of action in your prime will do that, but the assessment might be too self-critical.
Bowles still is the No. 8-ranked contender in the UFC’s official 135-pound rankings despite not competing since the loss to Faber in November 2011. He finally will make his return on the UFC 160 card Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden against George Roop.
“It feels great,” Bowles said Wednesday. “Just sitting around, not able to train or fight, you kind of get depressed.”
Bowles has battled several injuries throughout his career.
The most pressing problem has been with his right hand. That ailment proved costly in a 2010 WEC bout against Cruz, when Bowles lost his title after the cageside doctor stopped the bout because of Bowles’ hand injury.
He missed a year after that fight but returned to win his first two bouts in the UFC. Faber halted the streak in Bowles’ most recent bout.
A series of injuries followed. In all, the hand has been broken three times. He also suffered from a staph infection and a knee injury.
The most problematic injury as far as Bowles’ return to competition, however, has been a lingering back problem, which complicates his ability to get back in the gym when he’s trying to work though the other problems.
“If I have a layoff, it takes me longer than a normal person because of that. I’ve kinda had to work through that,” he said. “It feels like as soon as I would come back, I’d get injured again, and it would just put me out. Then I’d get lazy, and I’d get in the habit of not doing anything, and it just put me out for so long. Basically it was a combination of getting lazy and not doing what I’m supposed to do and the injuries that have kept me out.”
Despite all that, Bowles never doubted this moment would come.
“The plan was always to come back. I knew I was going to be back. It was just a bad streak that was happening. I knew that would end,” he said. “But it sucked. There wasn’t like a specific low point where I was down on myself. Fighting’s what I do, and if you’re not doing that, you have time to sit and think about how things aren’t going your way.”
Now it’s all about getting his career back on track. The loss to Faber came in a bout to determine the top title contender, but Bowles knows he’s not in a similar position now.
“I wouldn’t say people have forgotten about me, but I’m not really relevant right now,” he said. “They know that I’m there and that I’m coming back because they see my name on this card, but I’m not really relevant in the division because they don’t know how I match up with the new guys and how I’ll respond to the layoff and this and that.
“I just have to go out there and perform and show that I’m still here and I’ve still got it.”
He knows it will take more than just one fight against Roop to prove that, but there is one thing he must do for sure.
“You want to come in and make a big statement or whatever, but I’ve just got to win at this point,” he said. “If I don’t win, then I will be forgotten about. I just want to perform well and win.”
The fight is part of the preliminary card for Saturday’s pay-per-view event, capped by a rematch between Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva and Cain Velasquez.
Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj.