“I think for me the change has not been so much as an athlete, but more as a fan, because just growing up, I grew up watching all this,” he explained. “Like, I’m fighting Nasrat. If you asked me five years ago, three years ago, four years ago, would I be fighting Nasrat? I’d be like, no. I’m a local fighter. [Nasrat was] some guy I used to watch when I was like 18, you know?. So seeing him now, it’s like, damn, I’m really right here. I’m right by all the guys I used to watch. So I think I’m fanning [out] more than anything because it’s just like, ‘Bro, this is crazy!’
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“But the moment I stepped into the UFC cage, I told myself I was gonna defeat everybody. That day was just a marker, but as an athlete, I felt like I’m ready to compete. I’m ready to beat every one of them and just show I’m better.”
As a rising force in a lightweight division that is packed with big names and big personalities, it can be difficult to stand out through results alone. Padilla ackowledges that and said that he plans to be more vocal moving forward, without veering off into the cartoonish trash talk that can detract from a fighter’s credentials.