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Deron Winn's fight against Phil Hawes at UFC Austin didn't go as planned for Missouri wrestler. Hawes was on fire for the entire fight, battering Winn badly until he earned a standing TKO stoppage with endless step-in elbows 4:25 into the second round.
Hawes suffered a broken orbital and was a bloody mess by the end of the bout. That didn't stop him from joking around about the fight on Instagram. In a video highlight of the match, he provided some play-by-play commentary making light of the loss.
He said:
"Now the doc came to see me before the next round. Boy, get your ass out the cage, we fighting. I heard some drunk dudes in the stands cheering me on so I figured 'I'll get up.' I get up, I'm digging in my ear, I don't even know what's going on. We back to fighting. Try to make it dirty. We throw elbows, I'm throwing elbows. He elbows me for the three millionth time. I'm grabbing my head. Tired of getting elbowed. I'm like 'Stop! Elbowing! Me!'"
The defeat drops Deron Winn to 7-3 MMA, 2-3 UFC. Phil Hawes improves to 12-3 and earned a $50,000 performance of the night bonus off his violent TKO win.
Read Deron Winn's statement following his defeat at UFC Austin
Deron Winn's most recent Instagram post showed he still has a sense of humor about the ups and downs of being a mixed martial artist. The post before that was his more serious statement regarding the defeat to Hawes. It read:
"I don’t know what to say except that I got my ass beat tonight. Got rocked early and I couldn’t fully get my legs back. I have a broken orbital bone in my face that I believe came in the first round. Will need surgery. I tried so hard in every aspect of preparing for this fight. I had to overcome some serious issues in my life to even be able to come back and step into the cage tonight or ever again for that matter."
"I’m sad of course. But I will hold my head high on the person I know I am becoming. My support system is out of this planet. The people who have stuck with me through the rough patches thank you 🙏🏾. I’ll be back."
Broken orbital bones can take anywhere from two months to a year to heal well enough for a fighter to return to action. With Deron Winn's skill and charisma on the mic apparent in his latest video, perhaps his AKA gym teammate Daniel Cormier can recommend him for an analyst desk gig with ESPN in the meantime.
