Jake Lindsey’s path to redemption culminated with winning the Super Lightweight Championship at Unified MMA 36 on Friday, March 1, 2019.
Lindsey defeated Pat Pytlik in the main event at the River Cree Resort and Casino in Enoch, Alberta with a guillotine choke that rendered him unconscious.
“Dude, it’s awesome, you know?” said Lindsey, who was in great spirits during a post fight video interview with Liberty Multimedia. “I love the ‘super’ part of the lightweight, it makes me feel real good. Not too good though, hope I don’t try to jump off a building and fly. I’m going to be drinking the night so it might happen!”
Bowks Talking Bouts #139
Lindsey faced a lot of adversity coming into this fight, not the least of which was his mother being in a hospital two hours away from where he trains.
“My mom had an aneurism about five weeks ago,” said Lindsey. “She’d been in real bad shape and I’ve been training and driving to the hospital every couple days. I love you mom. I’m pulling for you and this is for you, my whole family, my coaches, all my friends and all the support I’ve had. It’s just been great and it means a lot to me, it really does.”
“I was in the hospital running up and down the stairs, that’s how I was getting my workouts in,” Lindsey continued. “I was running 12 flights of stairs, and I want to say thank you to Unified MMA and Pat for taking the fight.”
After dissecting tapes of Pytlik and knowing that Unified MMA was looking for an opponent, Lindsey sent a message to the organization asking them to send the contract right away.
“I said, ‘I’ll sign it, I’ll get it back to you in 20 minutes,’” said Lindsey. “I want to fight for good shows [and] I want to fight good guys.”
“He hit decently hard,” said Lindsey on Pytlik’s kickboxing skills. “But once we started grappling, I just knew I had him. His grappling just wasn’t up to par to where I’m at, He’s a good fighter, he wasn’t scared, he came hard. Hats off to him. I had him in his corner and I was smashing his face with my hand, and he was making jokes with his corner. He was laughing, ‘Ah, there’s too much blood my mouth!’ I’m like, ‘Goddamn! Better get this guy out of here, man.’”
In his post-fight interview in the cage, Lindsey credited Canadian Psychologist Jordan Peterson for helping him take responsibility for his life during a dark time. He expanded on this in a conversation with Liberty Multimedia’s Dylan Bowker.
“I started watching his lectures before he got really famous, you know, before all the Bill C-16 stuff,” said Lindsey. “It’s so weird that I’ve never met him, but it’s like it’s he’s Uncle Jordan, he’s been a father figure to me.”
Lindsey struggled with depression after losing three consecutive fights in the UFC.
“People don’t realize how far I’ve had to climb to get back to this,” said Lindsey. “ I feel like most people would quit. I’ve lost everything in pursuit to get back to where I was in my fighting career, so I’m about to start crying thinking about it. But his lectures… I was laying on my floor right after a really bad thing happened in my life, and I was like, ‘Fuck it. I’m done with everything.
“Not to get all crazy on you but randomly on YouTube, Jordan Peterson lectures why you should get your life together, and I just started watching,” Lindsey continued. “That guy just gave me tons of motivation to get my shit together. He’s always telling people to clean their room [and] I did that for sure. So thanks Jordan, this is for you right here. Let’s get a beer please.”
Lindsey is convinced the UFC is also heading in the direction of starting a 165lb division, and is potentially targeting Unified MMA Lightweight Champion Shane Campbell for his next bout. Campbell also won his fight against Menad Abella in a three round non-title bout on the same card.
“I’m not sure,” said Lindsey. “They want me to come back on May 24th. Shane’s a good fight. We were supposed to fight before but it was too short notice. I was too fat, eating some doughnuts with my kids, so I hope so. [Being a] double champ, that’ll get me right back to the UFC. I want to fight nothing but tough guys, and that’s what you guys have here.”
Full recap of the Unified MMA 36 event can be found here: