Yancy Medeiros Feels Rejuvenated to Fight in Front of His People in Hawaii

For the first time in more than 10 years, Yancy Medeiros will fight in front of his home crowd.

Medeiros (15-8, 1NC; 0-0 Bellator) is making his Bellator MMA debut at the upcoming Bellator 279 event, which will go down at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center in Honolulu on April 23. The last time Medeiros competed in his home state, he scored a first-round TKO victory at the expense of Zeke Prados in August 2009. Now, “The Kid” hopes to replicate that success and snap a four-bout skid against Emmanuel Sanchez. While results weren’t in his favor in his latest appearances, Medeiros believes that the partisan crowd will play a pivotal factor in his upcoming clash. In exchange, he promises to put on a show for the fans.

“Fighting at home means a lot,” he said. “When I was fighting in the UFC, I was always trying to push for the UFC to come back and try find a venue in Hawaii. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out. I always wanted to do that because my fans will fly out for me, and they always… the support is so strong in Hawaii. Hawaii is part of my brand, it’s part of my fighting, it’s part of the reason why I got out and wanted to represent, I need to represent this small island. Coming back, fighting at home is definitely something that… I feel like I’m paying homage, giving back to my fans. It’s good to be home and give. We always take, take, take, take, I’m happy that I can actually give to all the people that has been giving me support. That’s what I want to do, I want to give them a fight on April 23.”

Medeiros also discussed the bad habits that led to underperform in his latest fights, nutrition and competing across multiple weight divisions, and more.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:53) His camp for Sanchez
(02:06) Switching promotions and joining Bellator
(03:01) His expectation for the fight
(03:25) Importance of fighting at home
(04:35) The audience is always a factor in his battles
(05:25) Commenting on his current four-bout skid
(06:53) Reflecting on the back-to-back decisions he dropped
(09:41) Competing across multiple weight categories
(10:22) His relationship with nutrition
(11:10) Discussing his bad habits in training and fights
(11:51) Talking about the frequencies for his walkout songs
(12:38) Outro

Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog began in 2018 and now he covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.