Phil de Fries is the most dominant MMA champion in the world today.
The KSW heavyweight title holder is about to extend his rule on Saturday to win his 12th championship defense when he won the undefeated Arkadiusz Wrzosek at Poland’s KSW 107. And all of this was possible through treatment and medication.
The same British who failed to hold a positive record at the UFC over a decade ago became a finishing machine. He is now proud to look in the rearview mirror and see the winding paths he had to navigate.
“When I fought in the UFC, I was walking the Green Mile with every fight,” De Fries told MMA Fighting. “I was terrified. I thought I would be beaten, and I wasn’t very good for that.
De Fries became a professional MMA fighter in 2009 and was called to join the UFC less than two years later. The 7-0 youngster, who was just 25 years old, came out in front of the Birmingham crowd and made the decision over Rob Broughton in his UFC 138 debut, but soon lost to future champion Steep Miocic in just 43 seconds. He defeated English heavyweight Oli Thompson a few months later, then suffered consecutive knockouts to Todd Duffy and Matt Mitrione, ending his UFC career.
Then there was a fried fry fight wherever he could hunt for money and opportunities. In 2015, Journeyman Thomas Denham, who had a 5-6 record, beat him with a knockout, leaving De Fries incredible. He was dealing with all sorts of issues outside the cage, but it got worse from there.
“I didn’t know that anxiety was a state,” De Fries said. “Through my upbringing that I didn’t like that much, I was always worried and I didn’t know there was anything wrong with me. I was so worried. After being kicked out of the UFC, I probably started doing really bad things, in the festival scene, in the drugs and things.
“I was very worried. I couldn’t leave the house. I left, I either made sure the door was locked or walked five steps and said, “Did you lock the door? Has the gas gone?” I ended up setting up a camera in my bedroom. I Googled “irrational fear of everything” and it said anxiety and I said “hearn anxiety.” And when I read the symptoms I thought, “You were worried, and you had anxiety throughout your life.” ”
De Fries admits he has reached a point he thought he would never be able to fight again.
What’s worse, I wasn’t alive anymore.
“I was pretty depressed too, do you know? I was thinking about killing myself quite a lot,” De Fries said. “I was like, ‘Should I have killed myself? Is it better than always scared?” But I drank and the next day I would have been in a really very bad place. ”
“After being beaten in the local scene like a traveler, I should have won, and I fought badly, I was knocked out and I quit for a year,” he continued. “That’s when I really started drinking a lot. But my career I went to was, ‘If I lose this fight, I’m done.’ And it’s working for us, and now I’m gaining my life, I’m having a big fight in a big stadium.
The heavyweight praised therapy and drugs for his recovery, and could see him fight another person in a locked cage, so that he could “enjoy the huge stadium, 15,000 people, clapping his hands.” De Freeze says he hasn’t lost the fight since receiving the prescription from the doctor and admits he is afraid to let go of the pills.
“My doctors want me to take off my medicine, but I’m very happy. I’m earning until 10am. I’m a world champion,” says De Fries. “I accomplished my career, then four more years, retired, maybe try and get my medicine down, but all of a sudden the boom came back and it came back and I was still down.
“I don’t even know why I fought people. It was horrifying,” he continued. “I didn’t like training. The fight was scary. But for some reason I always wanted to be a fighter. But now I’m in control of my anxiety disorder. I enjoy life. It’s great. Sparring is good at the gym. I’m still scared. Do you know that it is?”
De Fries knocked out Michal Andryszak to win the vacant KSW title in April 2018. He won his debut in his organization and later sorted 11 men across Europe. The list includes UFC veterans such as Duffee, Darko Stosic and Augusto Sakai, with incredible runs with eight finishes on 11 title defense.
His opponent in the main event of KSW 107 at Gdansk, Wrzosek is a local veteran with a 6-0 record in MMA and a wealth of kickboxing career, and was concluded by a knockout victory of the glorious legendary Badr Hari. De Fries doesn’t expect to kick Wrzosek out, and when all the martial arts are combined, it makes you wonder how ready he is for this level of competition.
“He’s not checked on the ground yet. I think I’m the one who checks him,” De Fries said with a laugh. “I’m not getting any better hits than him, but I can fight MMA more than him. I can fake takedowns and land a shot from takedowns. The first instance I get on the ground.
“It’s hard to say (how good his grappling is), no one has ever seen him on the floor. I don’t know what he is, but the best grappler in the world can’t hang with me on the floor of an MMA.