Newark — Middleweight Roman Kopylov (15-5) was looking pretty banged up after UFC 328 on Saturday, after coming away with a hard-fought win over Marco Tulio.
The fight didn’t exactly go to plan.
“The plan was never to step back. Not a step backwards, that was the plan. Basically after the first round, we had to do something different,” the Russian fighter told media outlets including Cageside Press backstage at the Prudential Center following Saturday’s event. Kopylov’s striking coach told him between rounds to switch from single strikes to combinations. “That seemed to have worked, because we definitely dropped him. We weren’t able to finish him up, but at least we know combination punching worked for our game plan.”
When Kopylov dropped Tulio for the first time, Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier were critical of Kopylov’s decision to clinch up, rather than hunt for the finish.
“That one, my corner told me after the fight that if I had just let him go, I wouldn’t have finished him,” noted Kopylov in response.
However, at the end of the round, “the strength was kind of running out, the eye was kind of closing, the blood was in the way. So I wanted to make sure I didn’t overextend myself and not finish the fight that way.”
Roman Kopylov came away with a unanimous decision instead, snapped a two-fight skid in the process.
Watch the full UFC 328 post-fight press conference with Roman Kopylov above.