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Camden Fontenot Not Buying Into O’Connor’s Hype | UFC FIGHT PASS

While The Wrestling World May Count Camden Fontenot Out In Favor Of Fan Favorite Austin O’Connor, Fontenot Has No Fear For The Untested Rookie.
By Walker Van Wey • Jun. 5, 2024

Camden Fontenot knows his way around the MMA game enough to know Austin O’Connor’s toughness and grit just might not transfer to the Fury FC cage.

“I know he’s a multiple-time NCAA champ; I also know that he hasn’t had a fight yet,” Fontenot said right out of the gate.

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Sharing a training room with wrestlers turned fighters like Kyle Todrank, James Ford and more, Fontenot insists that not every blue chip wrestler putting on a pair of four-ounce gloves is Bo Nickal. After years of sitting on top of the world, not every wrestler has it in them to leave their comfort zone and put the work in from square one.



After the thousands of times Fontenot has heard Austin O’Connor being crowned the grittiest human alive, he’s had enough, and stepping up to make the five-time All-American put his money where his mouth is.

“We saw Anthony Cassar’s fight,” Fontenot said. “Not every wrestler can get in there and actually want to fight. I’m going to be the one to see if Austin O’Connor actually wants to fight or if he just wants to be in MMA for the name and all the hype.”



Fontenot admits that in a folkstyle match he’s out of his league with O’Connor, but explains that the wrestling itself may not be enough of an advantage to set O’Connor apart as drastically as everybody thinks. A folkstyle wrestler doesn’t walk into the Olympics the favorite just because of their college career, and Fontenot explains that there’s an even bigger gap when it comes to MMA, a gap he’s willing to put to the test.

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“I’m not scared to wrestle,” Fontenot said. “I enjoy wrestling when it comes to fighting, but again, this is MMA. That’s why I think I can get this guy out of there. I’m not scared to wrestle; there’s a lot of guys that would fight him and just be scared once he got to the legs. Bring the takedowns, I enjoy it.”

Not only does Fontenot note the difference between folkstyle wrestling and wrestling while being punched, kicked, kneed and elbowed, he also calls into question O’Connor’s cardio and conditioning in the new sport.



If you really can’t teach an old dog new tricks, Fontenot feels he has O’Connor’s number.

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“I know it’s different with the cardio in MMA compared to wrestling,” Fontenot explained. “You can’t give it your all for a takedown and expect to keep up the same pace throughout the whole fight when there are punches and knees and everything else coming.”



Fontenot has never had a fight become personal. After the fight, there will be no bad blood between himself and O’Connor, but he, and many at his gym, have begun putting a hit out on anybody they feel are in the sport for the wrong reasons.

Should Fontenot earn another notch in his belt and take a limb of Austin O’Connor’s back to the gym with him, he’ll push himself significantly closer to a UFC roster spot and perhaps expose a half-hearted fighter in the process, both of which are wins to him.



“I’m not here to play around and I’m not here to be an Instagram fighter,” Fontenot said. “I just want to fight the best, I want to be the best. To be the best, you have to fight who people think is the best. He deserves all the respect and hype he’s getting because he is a two-time champion and that is amazing, but I’m here to take that. I think my career will be huge.”



Catch Camden Fontenot vs Austin O’Connor at LIVE at Fury FC 91 Sunday, June 9, ONLY on UFC FIGHT PASS!

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