Wales’ Jack Shore made his featherweight debut against London record holder Markwan Amirhani at UFC 286 on Saturday.
In his final bout, Shore tasted defeat for the first time in his 17-fight career, making him want to move up a weight class from bantamweight. Since Shore has been one of the top prospects at age 135, it will be interesting to see where he sits at featherweight.
Having said that, his performance against Finn Amirkhani was a promising one for his performance in the division.
Arguably he could have fought top-ranked opponents, but since this is his featherweight debut, it’s questionable whether he looks like a natural at 145 pounds.
Shore, though he felt he fit in well and didn’t feel small against Amirkhani, said: “I feel like a lightweight, I feel solid, and when we locked down, I didn’t Feeling overpowered or oversized. I was fully committed to this last August, so I still have a lot of time to grow into the weight class.
“But I don’t want to stand still and end up at featherweight doing what I did at bantamweight, lose a bunch of weight and burn myself out, I want a middle ground where I can lose A little bit of weight so I’m not short, but I still want to keep my sanity so I can have that speed and stamina because I do feel like I have the best cardio in the UFC…” Shore said.
Jack Shore isn’t alone in his opposition to this training camp, though. The 28-year-old opened up about how his father began his battle with cancer during the camp.
“It’s been a tough training camp, you know my old man’s going through (what he’s going through), he’s such a tough guy, we’re used to him not missing training in the gym, and in our situation Constantly so he had to be absent sometimes due to having to go through treatment, I mean he finished chemo (chemo) two weeks ago, he had a week off, it was fight week.
“In the beginning, when I was invited to compete, I didn’t want to because it was too long,” Kishi said.
The Welsh prospect, while certainly accepting the struggle and making his entire family proud, will now find time to look after his dad.
Watch the entire postgame brawl with Jack Shore above.
