Ben Rothwell has enjoyed plenty of great moments during his 24-year combat sports career, but it’s going to be awfully hard to top his 36-second knockout of Mick Terrill to become the new BKFC heavyweight champion this past weekend.
The finish was incredible and winning his first-ever world title at 43 was special, but Rothwell revealed afterwards that he had to go through absolute hell just to get to the fight. It turns out he endured a massive 31-pound weight cut to get down to the heavyweight limit for the fight and Rothwell admits there were times when he felt like he just blew the biggest opportunity of his career.
“[When I fought in] California, I got my walk-around weight down to 296 [pounds] and then leading up to weight-cut day, I was 288,” Rothwell told MMA Fighting. “So we’re under 20 pounds and I got that off not too bad. It was some work but something this time around … it was a full 31 pounds. I got down to Thursday when they did their pre-weight check with me, I was 295. So it was every bit of 20 pounds [in less than 24 hours]. It was a 20-pound weight cut.
“The first 10 [pounds] came off OK. The next 10 became one of the greatest challenges of my life.”
The first obstacle came on Thursday when the BKFC KnuckleMania 5 press conference started late as the promotion waited for co-owner Conor McGregor to arrive. The event ended up starting without him, but Rothwell says the delays cut into the time he devoted to his weight cut.
After he finally started sweating off the pounds, Rothwell reached a breaking point where he thought it was all over.
“The press conference took an hour and a half away from my place that I had,” Rothwell said. “So I lost an hour and a half. We got down to 279.8 and we were at 280, I went as hard as I could for another 45 minutes and I only lost 0.2 [pounds].
“At that moment, I was going, ‘F*ck me, how am I going to get this last almost five pounds off in less than 10 hours?’ I was done. I was done at that moment.”
It was only after Rothwell reached out to famed nutritionist George Lockhart, who has worked with athletes like McGregor and Tyson Fury in the past, that he got the game plan he needed to shed those final pounds.
“We regrouped, they took me home, they threw me in the bed,” Rothwell explained. “Slept an hour, woke up, I texted George Lockhart, I told him everything that happened. He yelled at me because he didn’t feel things were done properly.
“He’s like, ‘Listen motherf*cker, you’ve got one shot and you’re going to do exactly what the f*ck I said.’ So I got everybody together, I woke them all up. Guys were like bumping into the door frames and rolling out of bed because I’m like get up, we’re doing this.”
Truth be told, Rothwell says the weight cut was far more difficult than anything he’s experienced in the cage or ring during his career.
“Let’s just say that 3 a.m, four-pound weight cut was the hardest thing I ever did in my life,” Rothwell revealed. “I shit you not. I had been through some bad shit. I’ve been through some hard things and being mummified for 45 minutes, wanting to absolutely rip my arms out and freak out and f*cking lose my mind and I somehow f*cking got through it.
“When I got on the scale after that and it said 275, I knew I won the f*cking fight. Because I knew mentally there was nothing that was going to stop me at that moment.”
During fight week, Terrill had continuously taken jabs at Rothwell over his weight and he kept showing concern that he wouldn’t get down to the heavyweight limit.
Rothwell used that as motivation, but he says Terrill was flat-out obsessed with his weight right up to the moment when he stepped onto the scale.
“He was so worried about my weight,” Rothwell said. “He brought a 50-pound [dumbbell] to weigh-ins and checked the weight in front of everybody, basically saying he didn’t believe the scale was right. Trying to say the organization was going to try to cheat me through.
“The scale said 50 pounds and he had to eat shit. Just like Todd Duffee. They get so in their head about it that when I hit the scale, they, like, lose. They’re like, ‘Oh shit, he did it.’ I’m already winning right then and there.”
All the hard work paid off when Rothwell uncorked a massive right hand that blasted Terrill during an early exchange and dropped him to the canvas in a heap. The fight was over almost as quickly as it started with Rothwell being crowned BKFC heavyweight champion in just 36 seconds.
That achievement is something Rothwell will never forget, especially knowing what he went through to get there. For all the big wins he’s amassed during his career, Rothwell promises that nothing comes close to that knockout.
“I’m very proud of the [Josh] Barnett and [Alistair] Overeem combo because it shows I was a very well-rounded fighter and they were huge moments,” Rothwell said about two of his biggest wins in the UFC. “I had viral moments with my interviews and talks and go-go choke, all of that.
“This was it. Those fights weren’t in front of 17,000 people. Those are major UFC fights and they weren’t in front of 17,000 people. 17,000 people on their feet screaming. That f*cking made it awesome. Dave Feldman’s hometown, BKFC’s hometown, we hit a grand slam that night. For me to come in and just top it off, it was an epic moment. Then they put a belt on me, my first world title, yeah it was incredible.”
