KO of the Year Contender Roop Back Home at 145

George Roop was not impressive fighting at 155 pounds in the UFC. The promotion cut him after three ho-hum performances that had resulted in a single win.

He turned up five months later at 135 pounds in the WEC. Again he failed to impress, losing a unanimous decision to Eddie Wineland.

When he moved to 145 for a bout against Leonard Garcia, the expectations were not high. Roop fought the former featherweight title challenger to a draw, though, and arguably deserved the decision. Then in his next 145-pound bout, Roop stunningly defeated “The Korean Zombie,” Chan Sung Jung, via what could be the knockout of the year.

It’s been quite a turnaround.

Roop knows now the 155 class was just too big for him. He had moved up to the division to compete on the eighth season of “The Ultimate Fighter” and stayed there to fight in the UFC.

“I walk around at like 160 pounds, and most lightweights are walking around in the [180s],” Roop said last week during an episode of “The Jordan Breen Show” on the Sherdog Radio Network. “The 145 [class] has always been my division. Before I went on the show, 145 is where I fought at. But when you get the opportunity like that, you have to just take the opportunity and kind of run with it and do your best.”

Roop might have overcompensated for being undersized. Following his stint at 155, he cut all the way to 135 for his WEC debut. Three and a half weeks out from his January match against Eddie Wineland, he was eating plain chicken, salad, rice cakes and almost no carbohydrates. It was a brutal cut.

“The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life up until this day still was just making 135 pounds, and I’ll definitely never do it again,” Roop said. “But I’m proud of myself that I made the weight. It’s not that I even felt terrible in the fight. I just felt like I didn’t bring the right game plan to Eddie Wineland because I was just so focused on my diet for that. Eddie Wineland’s a much better boxer than I was. He was definitely beating me on the feet, and I didn’t change it into a mixed martial arts fight. I should have got the fight to the ground.”

If nothing else, the loss steered Roop back to his proper division, where he shined against Garcia in March.

“Fighting at 145 pounds, I definitely feel like I’m the bigger, stronger guy,” Roop said. “I can utilize my reach and I have a lot more speed than these guys at 145 pounds, in my opinion.”

The 28-year-old also attributes his success to maturing as a fighter and working with trainers Shawn Tompkins and Robert Drysdale. In particular, Roop says Tompkins has a way of catering to different fighters’ strengths.

“With me, he helps me utilize my reach, make my punches a lot longer,” Roop said. “I really only have a 72-inch reach, but my reach is with my legs definitely more than anything else. He understands that and he understands the combinations to put together for me which are going to be accurate and successful.”

It was a head kick set up with a punch combination that put “The Korean Zombie” to sleep. Roop had planned on taking down Jung, but that changed in the cage when he found himself controlling range and feeling natural on the feet. The highlight-real knockout came 1:30 into the second round.

“I fired off a good one-two and stepped back and threw the left kick, and it landed nice,” Roop said. “I wish I could say I’d seen something and I planned something, but I didn’t. I just threw it, and it just happened to be on the money. I just let everything feel natural, so it was kind of more reflex than me seeing something earlier on in that fight.”

On the strength of back-to-back quality performances in the WEC at 145, Roop believes he’s ready for big-time competition. It shouldn’t be hard to find in the WEC. If Roop has his way, he’ll get one more fight this year -- in his home state of Arizona, which is hosting WEC 53 in Glendale on Dec. 16.

“Oh, man, I would love to fight on that card,” Roop said. “If there’s any card that I would want to fight on, it would definitely be the Glendale card.”

Listen to the full interview (beginning at 35:00) with Roop.