UFC Long Island: Charles Jourdain Has Accepted His Fate
French-Canadian featherweight discusses recent surge ahead of critical matchup with Shane Burgos on Saturday on ABC
Getting finished changed Charles Jourdain’s approach to his craft.
Prior to his September 2021 engagement with Julian Erosa, the French-Canadian featherweight had lost before, but only on the scorecards, and each time, there was a way to minimize the defeat or make peace with it in a much easier fashion. But that night in the UFC APEX, six months after securing an impressive win over Marcelo Rojo that confirmed a lot of the thoughts he had about his style and approach, Jourdain stepped in with Erosa — a late replacement for Lerone Murphy — and the gangly veteran clamped onto a D’arce choke midway through the third round that realigned Jourdain’s way of thinking.
“It’s one thing to lose by decision, but all the time I lost by decision, I was looking at the other guy and the other guy was happy there was not a fourth and fifth round like, ‘There are no breaks with that kid’ because I kept moving forward,” said Jourdain, who returns to action Saturday on Long Island against ranked featherweight veteran Shane Burgos. “All the fights I lost by decision, I knew that if I had more time, it would be a matter of time, but getting finished, there is a referee that came in and saved my life.
“So there is a switch that went on that every fight, give your all, put your soul out there because I’ll never know when it’s going to be my last fight, and I want to enjoy it as much as I can.”
Three months later, back in the APEX, the 26-year-old’s soul was on full display in his fight with Andre Ewell.
Betting on himself by fighting out the last bout of his contract, Jourdain turned in a dominant effort, capping the unanimous decision win with a violent push kick straight out of the movie 300 and a ferocious scream as the final horn sounded. The highlight was all over social media in the aftermath of the contest, and remains a featured clip in Jourdain’s Instagram stories.
For the athlete himself, the kick and scream were a releasing of stresses and pressures.
“All the pressure got released from my back after the Ewell performance,” said Jourdain, who was a two-division champion under the TKO banner before matriculating to the UFC. “I was like, ‘As long as I have fun, live the way that I want to live, and accept that fighting is not my whole life’ — there’s family, there is health, there is career, and to admit that fighting is not my whole life just released a lot of pressure off my back.
“I’m 26 and I need to shave my head because I have too many white hairs because of the stress, but I thought, ‘Why is there stress to being here?’ I’m doing the thing I love the most in the world, I know it’s a matter of time before I stop doing it, so why not just enjoy it? I’m in the best years of my life and I was stressing over it.
And it was also one last chance to take out a little of the frustration he felt with Ewell.
“I was a little pissed at him,” continued the surging Canadian. “I doubt that the UFC was going to let me (walk) even if I had a bad performance, but there was a possibility of it, but I knew that Ewell was also on the track of being terminated after this one, and seeing him quit and not want to hit me and accepting defeat, knowing this guy has a family to feed when I only have my girlfriend and my dog — to know that someone was at that stage, it pissed me off that he was not hitting me.
“That was unfortunate that I didn’t get the finish, but I had a finished man in front of me. Whatever my record says, that guy didn’t want to get up after the push kick; he was laying on the ground like, ‘Yeah, this kid is crazy.’
“For me, it’s a finish. That was a finish.”
If the victory over Ewell was only a “finish in spirit,” Jourdain made sure to get the real thing four months later.
After a short-notice opportunity to face Ilia Topuria in January fell through when the undefeated Georgian fighter was forced out due to issues with his weight cut, Jourdain made his return to the Octagon in April, standing opposite Lando Vannata.
The Albuquerque-based veteran made his featherweight debut 11 months earlier, scoring a split decision win over Mike Grundy at UFC 262 that had no business being a split decision. Vannata controlled the action throughout, landing the far more effective shots and neutralizing the British wrestler’s desire to grapple.
He burst onto the scene six years earlier with a thrilling short-notice debut loss to Tony Ferguson that earned them Fight of the Night honours and put Vannata on the map as an all-action fighter and perennially tough out. Despite entering the contest with a 4-5-2 record inside the Octagon, it was a clear step up in competition following the bout with Ewell and an important test of Jourdain’s newly established mental approach to things.
“I faced a guy who was in the best shape of his life in Lando Vannata, who fought Tony Ferguson, who fought Drakkar Klose, big guys at 155, and I managed to finish him in two minutes,” said Jourdain, who locked up a deep guillotine choke out of a scramble halfway through the opening stanza. “This is not the debuting Lando Vannata; that was the monster Vannata with all that experience.
“I had a very challenging opponent, and when he took me down, I managed to get up fairly easily — didn’t feel threatened by his jiu jitsu, nothing like that. The takedown, he got me off a switch kick, so I did a mistake there by not setting it up, but being able to eat his shots, throw the straight left, choke him — it was a good win.
“The most important part of it was showing that I don’t mind you dictating where a fight is going to go because I lack ability in that domain, in terms of wrestling, but I can finish you from standing and from the bottom as well,” he added. “It was mostly a message to these guys that think, ‘Oh, Jourdain — we just need to take him down.’
“Yeah, I’ve got a surprise for you, motherfuckers.”
Following the victory, Jourdain politely asked to share the Octagon with Brazilian veteran and Top 15 fixture Edson Barboza, eager to test himself against a fellow striker that would meet him in the center of the cage and accept whatever the fates may decide.
Instead, he was paired off with Burgos, a native New Yorker born in the Bronx who now resides 90 minutes north of the UBS Arena at Belmont Park that will play host to their tussle this weekend.
While not the name he requested, Jourdain is no less excited about stepping in with “Hurricane Shane” on Saturday.
“Burgos and me, I knew we were going to clash some day, just like Topuria; I know we’re going to clash some day,” he said of the pairing. “The UFC likes my style, they like his style, and they know we’re going to put on fireworks in his backyard.
“This is my first two-fight winning streak and they already put me in with a guy in the Top 15. I look at my resume, my record, and most of these guys in the Top 15 were all around 15-20 fights, but I’m at 18 fights; I’ve got more fights than some of these guys up there like Burgos and Topuria and Bryce (Mitchell). I’ve got more fights and I’m one of the youngest of them.
“I’m building something and the UFC seems to like it, I think, which is why they gave me the chance to fight somebody in the Top 15.”
It certainly feels like Jourdain is building something, and that a switch has definitely been flipped in his last two appearances, one that will need to remain engaged this weekend on Long Island, as Burgos is an all-action fighter that will be looking to build on his unanimous decision victory over Billy Quarantillo last November at UFC 268 and defend his place in the rankings.
For the streaking French-Canadian, the key has been getting out of his own head and making peace with the inherent possibilities that come with forging a career with your fists inside a cage for the entertainment of others.
“It’s the ability to not stress over probability, like the probability of getting choked,” said Jourdain. “There are good probabilities and there are bad probabilities, but I’m good with all of them. Once you accept your fate — and that you have the power to make it better or worse — it’s all in my hands.
“I just perform. The training was there. I was there. Everything was good, so it’s weird to say, but the more I got away from the self-help section in the book store, the more happy I’ve become. The more I let life do her thing and I do mine, and everything is going according to plan right now.
“The self-help section is closed for me now; I’m sticking to manga.”
Jourdain had a rocky start to his UFC tenure, losing two of his first three fights and standing at 2-3-1 heading into his breakthrough effort against Ewell back in December.
There were points where it weighed on him, left him trapped in his own thoughts, but now, he recognizes the setbacks and challenges for what they were: important steps on the road to greater understanding of who he is as a fighter and as a man.
“I was criticizing myself — ‘Why am I not the next big thing? Why am I not undefeated?’ — and I realized there is no shame in having a tough road,” he said. “Everyone wants the easy way now, but there is no easy way if you want to get to the top.
“I’m grateful for the losses, I’m grateful for the wins — I’m just very happy that I’m becoming more and more of a complete fighter. I don’t care about failure. I think a loser is not someone that losses — it’s someone that doesn’t even try.
“I will dare to be great and at the end of the day, if I don’t become champ or double champ or blah blah blah, I will be happy knowing I did my best.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he quickly added. “I’m not accepting defeat against Burgos or anybody; I want to destroy, I want to take part of their soul, and I want them to remember that crazy kid from Montreal for the rest of their lives.
“I want to make my mark, but I’m doing it for me more than anything.”