LAS VEGAS -- If it were an answer on Jeopardy!, it might be, "With nine, he has the most knockouts at lightweight in UFC history." The correct question, of course, is "Who is Drew Dober?"
And while there are plenty of people who know Dober, Dober needs to keep winning to keep his name in the news and enhance his chances of landing a mega-fight. And so, even though the power in his hands has helped lead him to plenty of quick nights and triumphant wins, he knows he needs more than that.
Dober knocked Ricky Glenn out in the first round of a UFC Fight Night card on Oct. 7 at Apex, in what he said was a change in approach. Because he fell in love with the enormous power he has in his hands, he believes it cost him a defeat to Matt Frevola at UFC 288 on May 6 in Newark, N.J.
He had to get back to mixing it up and being willing to wrestle and grapple. He plans to do that on Saturday when he faces Renato Moicano in the co-main event of UFC Vegas 85 at Apex.
"[That fight was important to] showcase what we'd been working on, to bring back a little of the old," Dober said of his win over Glenn. "We showcased that against Ricky Glenn and we're just going to keep that ball moving. This life of an MMA fighter, there's peaks and valleys and you have to be able to learn from the valleys. One of which is we had to bring back a little bit of the old I was doing. You just have to stop believing your own hype and keep moving forward."
Power is almost always a blessing for fighters, because it can bail them out of some desperate situations. It often changes the way an opponent might approach them in a fight.
But Dober found out he was too reliant upon it and had gotten away from what had made him an elite fighter in the first place.
"When you have the knockout record, and you start believing it, like, 'This is who I am and I can get this knockout,' " Dober said. "But we were doing things to get the knockout record. I entered the UFC and I had to prove who I was, and I had set-ups. I had movements. I was wrestling a little bit more. I was doing a little more jiu-jitsu. And I kind of left that all behind and just got focused on knockouts."
Dober had won three in a row, all by knockout, heading into the fight with Frevola. The last of those KOs, a second-round KO of Bobby Green, left him tied with Dustin Poirier for the division's knockout record, at eight.
He went into the Frevola fight clearly believing in his power and looking for the record-setting finish. Instead, it turned out he was the one who was finished because he didn't do things the right way.
"I went in with that gunslinger mentality of, 'I'm just going to hit him harder,' " Dober said. "It just didn't work out. MMA is not the [sport] where you can have that mentality and make those mistakes and it's showcased in such a large setting."
He'll face a challenge on Saturday against Moicano, who is fighting for the first time since he submitted Brad Riddell at UFC 281 on Nov. 13, 2022, and dubbed himself 'Money Moicano' afterward.
Moicano is eager to test Dober and thinks he's a better overall fighter. He knows that Dober has a name and a back-and-forth battle is going to draw attention and perhaps to win him one of the four $50,000 post-fight bonuses the UFC hands out after each event.
"That’s a chance to make money,” he said. “Because ‘Money’ Moicano doesn’t give a shit about people. I don’t. If you are my fan, if you support me, if you buy my stuff like a lot of people buy my stuff, I’m grateful for that. At the end of the day, do you know what pays my bills? Going out there and beating mother f*ckers and finishing mother f*ckers. That’s what pays my bills and I have to say, I make good money for that.
"So I’m just worried [about] finishing Drew Dober. That’s my only worry. I don’t care. If the fans like you, that’s OK. Of course, everybody loves to be loved but if they don’t like [me], at least I have double checks to be happy about. The only thing I am really thinking about is double checks, making some money.”
Dober loves that attitude from his opponent. He knows what he needs to do and he believes he's capable of pulling it off against Moicano.
Moicano has a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu while Dober is a brown belt, but Dober believes that if he does things the right way, he'll get the win.
He noted that the mistake he made when he fought Islam Makhachev before Makhachev won the lightweight title is that he shied away from grappling. He said he's learned his lesson and will be more than eager to go to the floor with Moicano if that's what it takes.
“The opportunity to fight a guy like Moicano, who’s equally as vicious, violent, and he’s a gamer [is great],” Dober said. “He’s fought guys like Jose Aldo, The Korean Zombie, he took RDA (Rafael dos Anjos) on like five days’ notice. The guy is a monster. These are the fights that excite me because I know he’s going to bring out that in me as well, and it’s going to be bloody. It’s going to be violent. It's going to be fun and there will be a smile on both our faces. These are the fights and moments I want to be remembered.”