King Green: Always Keeping It Real

Not that it was easy, like he said, there were ups and downs and trials and tribulations, even in the midst of one of his best years to date in 2023. Two Performance of the Night finishes of Tony Ferguson and Grant Dawson were bookended by a no contest with Jared Gordon and a first-round knockout loss to Jalin Turner, but while the setbacks could put Green in a funk years ago, these days, he’s figured out how to stay the course even when there are bumps in the road.

“I feel like I'm more wise, I'm more patient, I'm more everything,” he said. “I'm just not so wild as I was when I was first coming up. I felt like I've had better training. Now I'm more focused and more everything. There's not something that I'm not doing.”

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And in his first appearance of 2024, he delivered one of his best efforts to date in a dominant win over Jim Miller on the historic UFC 300 card. It was the type of victory he needed, not to move him into the rankings (where he currently sits in the No. 15 slot), but to prove that on the biggest stage is where Green truly shines. He did just that, so when he travels to England to face one of the UK’s most popular fighters, the moment won’t get the best of him. It’s just another fight.

“It's going to be another night,” said Green. “It's nothing different. I'm going in there to do what I do. This has not changed from one day to the next. If you watch all my fights, they're entertaining, for the most part.”

Entertaining, yes. But not always as dominant as they were against the trio of Miller, Dawson and Ferguson, which tells us that Green is leveling up at precisely the right time. And he believes that while Liverpool’s Pimblett is a good fighter, he’s not King Green.

“The difference between me and Paddy is a lot,” he said. “I can go down a whole list of things. The difference between him and I is I've been war tested, battle tested, and I've been through the ringer and back. I earned my spot. I can go with thousands of reasons. I'm faster than him. I'm smarter than him. I'm smoother than him. And I'm cooler than him.”

He also takes issue with Pimblett’s assertion that Green needs him for his continued career growth.

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“That's crazy,” said Green. “I never needed nothing but some money, some recognition from all my people that I do this around and the respect from my people back at home in the IE (Inland Empire). But as far as he goes, he needs me to get into the Top 15. He needs me so that he could have some actual respect. Everybody you fought, they don't respect it yet. He gets a win over me, now it’s like, ‘Okay, we'll respect him now.’ But until that point, you need me, kid. Don't listen to this little thing that you looked at a on computer screen and it told you that you were cool. No, you got to be cool in real life. That's not real life. That's the internet. I'm the real man in real life.”

And one of a kind. Yeah, King Green did it his way. And he always will.

“I just stayed strong,” he said. “I stayed to the grind. Being a true warrior, being the realest, and when the chips fall and the dust settles, I'm the only one who’s still here. The truth will always speak for itself, and my skills speak for themselves.”