Aaron Pico had Henry Corrales hurt bad in the early phases of their anticipated Bellator 214 scrap. In fact, it looked as though the highly-regarded prospect was probably just a second or two away from another first-round knockout victory.

Unfortunately for Pico, Corrales clung to his consciousness, and bringing to life every wounded animal metaphor we’ve ever heard in the fight game, fired back with a blistering punch of his own. Suddenly it was Pico on spaghetti legs, and moments later, he was unconscious.

Despite this tough knockout loss, Aaron Pico showed up at the Bellator 214 post-fight press conference to face the media. That, he says, is part of his job.

“That’s just what you do,” Pico said (transcript via MMA Fighting). “When you win the media is always here, when you win. And you have to show your respect, you can’t just be coming out when things are good. When the shit hits the fan, you gotta be a man.”

Interestingly, Aaron Pico also seems to recognize some of the mistakes he made already.

“There’s really no excuses to make,” he said. “I felt good out there. My training camp went well. I hit him. I think I have so much power in my hands, I don’t realize I knock people down. It happened so fast. Obviously I made a mistake by staying in the pocket too long. It’s a 50/50 chance of somebody getting knocked out. That sucks, it sucks bad. But hey, I’m 22 years old, I don’t have this figured out yet. It’s something that needs to be slowed down for me. I need to use my wrestling a little bit more and we’ll go from there. We’ll go back to the drawing board.”

“I just need to take my time,” he added later. “I haven’t gotten to use my wrestling because I’ve been knocking all these people out, but it’s a learning lesson against these veterans, they’re able to endure the shots and find their spots and weather the storm a little bit.”

What do you think the future holds for Aaron Pico after Bellator 214?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 1/25/2019.