Michael ‘The Maverick’ Chiesa (14-4 MMA, 7-4 UFC) has had a rough comeback since injury. The #12 ranked contender took a year off recovering from injury to make a comeback in June last year. Chiesa suffered a controversial submission loss to Kevin Lee.

‘The Maverick’ then took on former UFC lightweight champion Anthony ‘Showtime’ Pettis at UFC 226 earlier this month. Chiesa again suffered a submission loss to Pettis. However Chiesa believes a bad cut affected his performance. Not only did he lose 30% of his purse but also thought he was going to die.
Considering the consequences, Chiesa believes it’s better to move up to the welterweight division. He made Hus decision official with a post on Instagram. (via Instagram):
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlcBsOunbMZ/
“In the last few years, I’ve felt my skills as a fighter drastically improve, especially through 2018 but I’ve yet to reflect that,” wrote Chiesa. “There’s a couple changes that need to be made, one being something new and the other is returning to something from the past. Obviously the new is it’s time for me to test the waters at welterweight. All of my family, many of my teammates and almost all my coaches have been trying to talk me into going up a weight class. I spend the better half of my camps stressed about weight, feeling like a shadow of myself in training and just being miserable doing the thing I love most in the world. I pushed my body very hard this last cut, one of the scariest experiences of my life and I still failed. I don’t want experience that ever again.”
Read also:
UFC: Michael Chiesa claims Conor McGregor bus attack costed him a potential title shot