Justin Wetzell Talks Focus and Opportunity Ahead of LFA 109
Interview with Justin Wetzell above
Justin Wetzell (6-1) will face Askar Askar at LFA 109 on June 4 and he could not be more ready to get back to action. The news of the fight was not known until recently, but for Wetzell, signing up for a fight is better than not having one scheduled at all.
In a year where the COVID-19 global pandemic made the logistics of sports, and pretty much everything else difficult. This time last year, Wetzell had a plan that was going to get him on track to get on Dana White’s Contender Series or The Ultimate Fighter but like many plans, his had to change.
Wetzell called everything that has happened as of late, “frustrating” when he caught up with MyMMANews. “Definitely frustrating man, you know the two cancellations before that withdrawal one of them being that I got injured. Another COVID got it shut down, um I got an opponent, he got COVID, that fight fell out. The fight managed to get a replacement two weeks later. That fight wasn’t fun, going through two weight cuts in two weeks.”
Eventually, Wetzell got his fight at LFA 93 this past Fall and he won when he picked up a unanimous decision win over Teshay Gouthro but that was almost half a year of waiting for the bantamweight fighter.
“Staying busy is what I wanted and it’s not what I got man,” said Wetzell, “But not a lot of us got what we wanted in 2020.”
For Wetzell, what he wanted was to get on the Ultimate Fighter, but by now fans know the more active a fighter is, the more they stay on the UFC’s radar. “ I was looking to try to do The Ultimate Fighter, and it looked like that was kind of going to be a thing. However, I fell just short. I got a call just a few days before The Ultimate Fighter started taping and they said, ‘Sorry man, you didn’t make it.’”
As Wetzell was doing the interview the night of LFA 108, he and Askar were just announced. Wetzell said, “Hey, I’m booked now and that’s all I can really focus on.”
With everything seemingly going back to normal, a win for Wetzell at LFA 109 could certainly keep him in the UFC’s Rolodex.
