Phil Davis Talks Tonight’s Machida Fight: ‘I’m Going to Win’

Tonight, in the UFC 163 co-main event, a pivotal light-heavyweight matchup between Lyoto Machida and Phil Davis goes down.

For Phil Davis, the opportunity to be considered a top contender passed him up in 2012 when he suffered his first and only career defeat in his headlong slot against Rashad Evans. Now three fights removed from that crushing loss and he is surging back with another top 3 opponent in Machida.

This is his second chance, and ‘Mr. Wonderful’ told the media on the UFC 163 conference call that he is going to win this fight and prove he belongs in the title picture.

“I don’t really know where I fit in the whole title contention picture. I don’t really go by the rankings. I looked at the rankings once. I was disappointed, so I never looked at them again, and I just kind of go fight by fight. I won my last fight. I really want to get a finish. I’m going to win this fight and if I get a finish, it’ll put me a lot further along than a loss or a win will… I brought in a couple of people to help me get a feel for what he does. But really nobody can really do what he does. He does it better than anybody. He has a very unique style. He’s a guy that’s really good with a certain set of skills. And I don’t necessarily have to try to fight like him in order to win. I just have to be on my A-game, and be extremely good at what I do… There’s a lot of that that I can take in. Number one, I know what not to do. Most importantly, I should say, I know what not to do. I did lose to the number one contender at that time. But I didn’t get beat up. And that’s always good. Not getting beat up is part of the game, at least that’s my favorite part of the game… So, how I’m going to apply this to Lyoto Machida, I really don’t know. They’re two completely different guys. They don’t fight alike. They don’t look alike. They don’t talk alike. I’m just going to go out there, and do what I need to do, wrap this guy up.