It might appear that Cody Durden is the fighter the UFC calls whenever the promotion needs somebody to step up on short notice but after four losses in a row, he was cognizant that he was in a must-win situation for his next appearance in the octagon.
Following a loss at UFC 326 in March, Durden received a call asking if he’d be interested in booking his next fight in China at the end of May. At the time, Durden was still dealing with some lingering injuries that he had to get checked out before he could
give them an answer.
“They asked me to fight in China versus Rei Tsuruya for May 30 and at the time, they asked me right after I fought,” Durden told MMA Fighting. “It was like five days later and at that point my knee was messed up, I had to get an X-ray on my thumb. I thought my thumb was broken but luckily it was just severely sprained. So I was like I can’t give you an answer right now but I’m going to get back to you after I get an MRI, get an X-ray and see what’s going on with my knee and my thumb. That was five or six days after I fought [Nyamjargal] Tumendemberel in March.
“Then I read online that they went with a different opponent for him in China, which I was OK with that. I didn’t want to go to China. It costs a lot of money for cornermen. I think it’s a 24-hour flight. At the time, it was not ideal for me.”
Rather than take time off once his knee and thumb injury were cleared, Durden decided he wanted to get right back in the gym so he traveled to American Top Team with no idea when he might compete next.
All Durden knew was that whenever the UFC came calling again, he had to be ready and losing wasn’t an option if he wanted to keep his job.
“So I told my wife, I spent three weeks at home and I was training but I wasn’t really getting after it,” Durden explained. “I was like I’ve got to leave, it’s April 1, I’ve got to go back to Coconut Creek. I’ve got to get back in gear and get back in the win column. She was like ‘I agree.’
“So I left April 1 and went to Coconut Creek and two weeks ago they asked me to fight Ode Osbourne on July 11 and I was like perfect. Because I sat right next to him at UFC 327 and three days later they asked me to fight him.”
Durden barely started preparing for Osbourne when his manager called him with an entirely different offer that required him to fight much sooner than later.
“I was doing the meet and greet Saturday and Ali [Abdelaziz] hits me up and he’s like, ‘Hey Cody, they want you to fight May 9 versus Jafel Filho.’” Durden said. “I was like May 9, that’s three weeks. What about my other fight?
“I was like I’m in a bad situation, I can’t be taking short notice fights like this. I was like tell Mick [Maynard] I’ll do it but guarantee me one more. He came back and said, ‘Yeah, it’s a go.’”
With three weeks to prepare for UFC 328, Durden wasn’t in an ideal situation but he was confident he could get the job done.
Then everything turned upside down again.
“Sunday, I get texts and calls from the UFC about my flight and stuff and it’s April 25,” Durden said. “I’m like what’s going on? I call [Ali] and he’s like ‘don’t worry about it, it’s May 9.’ Then I told the UFC, I’m not fighting this weekend, I can’t make 125 [pounds] in five days.
“Ali calls me Monday and says, ‘I’m sorry, we made a mistake, this fight is this weekend, do you want it?’ I did some negotiation back and forth with Mick and I was just like f*ck it, why not? Hopped on a plane, left from Florida, went straight to Vegas, rallied up some cornermen.”
If three weeks’ notice was tough, fighting just four days later was anything but ideal.
Despite the odds being stacked against him and facing an opponent who had a full training camp to prepare, Durden gutted out a hard fought victory after three grueling rounds.
Based on the situation, Durden should have almost assuredly lost his fifth fight in a row, but instead he engaged in a back-and-forth battle before emerging victorious on the scorecards. Technically, he wasn’t fighting for his job, but the win definitely made him feel more secure about his future in the UFC.
“I had a lot to lose,” Durden said. “Got in there, I was patient. Just round-by-round, I went in there with a different mindset. My mind has always been kill or be killed and I’m always going after these guys and either I’m falling or they’re falling. Here recently it’s been me falling a lot. So I switched my game plan, switched my mindset to round-by-round and getting out there and just letting things come to me and not forcing things and it paid off big time.
“I had so much to lose. But they did guarantee me one more. It was like you get two chances to win instead of one. I really worked so hard. Leaving my family for months at a time and just living at the gym at [American Top Team] and just focused on training. But when the cage door locks, you have to make the right decisions in the cage just like you do outside of the cage. I felt like Saturday, it clicked for me. I felt at home. I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t anxious. I wasn’t full of adrenaline. It was just a fight.”
The win put Durden back on track, but he certainly doesn’t want that feeling to go away so he’s already plotting his next move.
While he hasn’t officially heard word from the UFC, Durden feels like that fight against Osbourne at UFC 329 in July still makes sense and he’s more than willing to take it.
“I think I’m going to get a new contract and then fight Ode,” Durden said. “If they still want to go that Ode route, cool. If not, we’ll go another route. As long as I have security and get a new contract, I’ll fight anybody.
“I already train with Kyoji [Horiguchi] and [Alexandre] Pantoja everyday and they don’t get that good. Those guys are the best. What else can someone else do to me? I’ll fight anybody.”
