Diego Sanchez talks about coming back from “rock bottom” on the UFC Live 3 conference call (audio)

The Ultimate Fighting Championship held a media conference call Tuesday to help promote “UFC Live 3: Sanchez vs. Kampmann“, scheduled for Saturday, March 5, at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky.

The event, which will air LIVE on Versus, features a welterweight main event between Diego Sanchez and Martin Kampmann and a middleweight co-headliner between C.B. Dollaway and Mark Munoz.

Sanchez, Kampmann, Dollaway and Munoz, were all on Tuesday’s call to talk about their upcoming fight.

Most poignant, however, was Sanchez’s honesty and transparency about what he went through after his loss to B.J. Penn (20:45):

“I hit rock bottom after the B.J. Penn fight, I really did. I blew through all my money. I made some very bad decisions. I had this scam artist scam me real bad, I was in debt for a little over $175,000. I really hit rock bottom. I had to come back home. I needed my family love. I was humbled, 100% I was humbled. I was humbled back down to zero. I had no ego, nothing, just humbled. And after the John Hathaway loss I was still in funk. I was still in a funk for John Hathaway. I was going to the bar and drinking beer after training. I didn’t even take him serious at all. I thought I was just going to go in there and knock this guy out, I’m going to take him down. And in the first round I got hit with a knee in the face real hard and I couldn’t recover from it. I wasn’t in the physical shape or the spiritual or the mental. I shouldn’t have been in the ring for that fight period and after that fight I said I’m going to go back to what got me there and that was Greg Jackson’s, high altitude, and just earning it. And number one my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I let go of the simple life and just started living my life for Jesus and doing the right things and not partying, and not being on that party fame bus.”

Listen to the UFC Live 3 conference call below:

UFC Live 3 conference call