Payton Talbott says he ‘reinvented’ himself ahead of UFC 332

Payton Talbott is approaching his high-profile matchup against former flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo at UFC 332 on October 3 in Salt Lake City with a reinvigorated fighting style.

The bantamweight prospect faced an extended nine-month layoff following his impressive December victory over two-division titleholder Henry Cejudo. Rather than view the downtime negatively, Talbott used the opportunity to refocus on his craft and evolve as a fighter. "Yeah, it was kind of weird," Talbott told the UFC. "This is all still new to me, so I tried to just stay training and just stay ready. I mean, I trained pretty much the whole year, and I feel like I kind of reinvented myself a little bit and went back to my roots, went inward."

During his time away, Talbott worked to integrate new techniques and lessons from training with different camps while maintaining the core qualities that led to his initial success. "You go and train out of town, and you pick people's brains and sometimes you take things from them and implement them into your game," Talbott explained. "But a lot of the times, the reason you got where you are is because of you. And so, you just have to correctly learn how to implement it and not let it fully change you, but just use the best of what you learn." The fight against Figueiredo represents a significant test for the rising star.