Wes Schultz has been partying hard—through the highs and lows.
He doesn’t need sympathy or charity, but the first few days of May have been a rollercoaster for the UFC middleweight.
Schultz (9-3 MMA, 1-1 UFC) picked up his first win for the promotion on May 2 at UFC Fight Night 275, defeating Ben Johnston (5-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) via third-round guillotine. Schulz flew back across the world from Perth with his performance, victory and finishing bonus in tow.
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About 48 hours later, Schultz was suddenly woken up by his girlfriend. As he dozed on the couch, a fire broke out in the house.
“I would have, but my house literally burned down,” Schultz told MMA Junkie, his hands covered in ashes from cleaning up the remnants. “I wasn’t in my house. This is what’s left of it. … Monday night when I came back. It fucking exploded. Electricity, crazy stuff.”
While losing material possessions is painful, everyone’s ability to escape safely is what matters.
“This is toast,” Schultz said. “But what the fuck are you going to do? It doesn’t matter. Keep hanging on…everyone got out safely. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have been fucked.”
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Schultz said he lives a simple life, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to replace many of the items, especially with the county’s Trash Day approaching.
Asked if he would start a GoFundMe, Schultz said: “I don’t need a handout from anybody.” “I just made a ton of money last weekend. Anyway, I live very simply. I don’t need anything. I got my car. I got my body, my hair. Unfortunately, my suitcase survived the fire, but my passport didn’t. So, no international fight for the moment. I got my mouth guard. I got the tools of my trade. I got everything I need.”
Even with the recent adversity, Schultz is still basking in the enemy’s victory over Johnston. He said he thought it was the most mature performance of his career. He felt calm and collected, even going into the final round of the fight that he might have lost at the time.
“A lot of guys are in the UFC,” Schultz said. “I feel like it’s probably a bullshit number, but a lot of Contender Series guys come into the UFC and go 0-2 and then they’re out. Now that I’ve come in and got the win, I feel like a real UFC guy Warrior. Going into the third round, coming out of the second round, my coach was like, ‘We’ve never seen you so calm on the bench. And then you came out and we were all going to go out there and yell this guy’s ass.’ And then I went out there and sat down and got caught. … I think I grew a lot from this experience.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC fighter’s house burned down two days after Perth win