For Rothwell, Fighting Is In The Soul

He chuckles, a brief moment of levity as the longtime heavyweight contender prepares for his Saturday comeback bout against Blagoy Ivanov in Wichita. It’s been nearly three years since Rothwell was in the Octagon, where he saw a four-fight winning streak snapped by this weekend’s headliner, Junior Dos Santos in April 2016.

That was bad enough, but what was worse was the two-year USADA suspension Rothwell received for a failed drug test in 2017. And it hit him hard, so don’t expect any quotes from him about recharging his batteries, getting some time to himself, or letting his body rest.

“I don't have many positives,” he said. “I lost three years of income. A year of it, I had an injury, but two years of it, it's been a lot to deal with.”

He does note that he’s happy to get some new Reebok gear during fight week, but other than that, it’s not necessarily excitement that he’s feeling in his return, but something more than that. 

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“Sometimes it's hard to find the right words,” Rothwell said. “You have to understand that some of my earliest childhood memories seemed to revolve around fighting. For me, it was picking up a stick and beating up trees in my yard like I was on a battlefield, and I feel like even though I didn't have traditional martial arts in my life until I was 17 years old, it was always in my soul and it's always been a part of me. So the last few years have been very hard for the emptiness that I feel, and I feel like a part of me is allowed to come back.”

Rothwell knows it won’t be easy. He’s 37 years old, he’s been out of action since 2016 and he’s fighting a killer in Ivanov. And there are more killers waiting for him after his bout with Ivanov.

“What I see before me is the heavyweight division's the best it's ever been,” Rothwell said. “These are the biggest and some of the toughest human beings on the planet, and you take a look at the top ten and every guy on there is a killer. I can't say enough good things for the heavyweight division as a whole and how powerful and how scary each and every one of them is.”

Before the layoff, Rothwell was a scary dude, too. In his 4-1 pre-suspension stretch, he finished Brandon Vera, Alistair Overeem, Matt Mitrione and Josh Barnett in succession and had built a reputation as not just an elite heavyweight, but an entertaining one with a unique but captivating charisma. None of that should have changed, but he admits that the outside world looks at him as someone facing an uphill climb in his return.