Philosophical Thicknesse primed for return to the cage

A prodigious talent long-tipped to follow near lifelong training partner Alex Volkanovski into, not just the UFC, but its upper echelons, has thus far endured a career plagued by injury setbacks.

And not just any setbacks. He's suffered a broken back, back-to-back concussions and ensuing long recovery periods, and more recently the tear to intercostal (rib) muscles that forced him out of his last planned bout in May.

Throw in a subsequent knee ligament injury suffered in training, and it's been a luckless run for the 24-year-old, but as he prepares to end a year-long hiatus from the cage on Saturday, he is, as ever, philosophical.

"It's pretty disappointing with how it all happens, but I always just look at it as a lesson that's just taught me more resilience," Thicknesse tells the Mercury

"I always use the analogy that it's like being a footballer training every week, but they don't get to play on Saturday. You just really want to get to that game, but it is what it is, injuries happen in this game.

"It's just about sticking to the path. Even though I was injured, I was still in [the gym] the exact same amount of hours as when I'm training. That's hard mentally, but as long as I trust the process, I honestly feel that break refreshed me and made me come back better.

"I always try to zoom out of things. Hypothetically, you've got your athletic career fighting into your late thirties. I've had this injury when I was, say, 21-22. If you zoom out, there's still not a big percentile of time in my actual journey I'll spend injured.

"Just having the end goal in mind of where I want to get to in the UFC, in the rankings, fighting for belts and everything like that, it's just brought a good perspective shift."

It helps that he's not driven by opponents, or fight records. His is a healthy 3-0, but 'Slickness' says his confidence is built in the gym, not the fight cage.

"A much as I enjoy the actual fighting aspect, getting my record up and the wins, the challenge for me isn't actually the fight," he said.

"The challenge is just constantly being the best version of myself across all the martial arts. It doesn't matter if I had these 12 months out where I didn't have that goal of a fight lined up, it was still day in, day out, just trying to be better than myself yesterday.

"This sport's so crazy, there's so many things that can happen. Even in the UFC there was a fight on the weekend where a guy (Raul Rosas) pulled out just before he walked out.

"If I have a mindset where I'm going into fight thinking 'oh, I get to show everybody how good I am' and then something like that happens, where does that leave me?

"I can't derive self worth and the value of my training and everything I put in off that one performance. It's just that day to day grind where all I want to do is be better than I was yesterday."

If some of the lessons along the way have been tough ones, the opportunity he has against 7-3 Melbournian Michael Mannu on the Hex Fight Series 29 card in the southern capital is a reminder of how quickly things can shift.

A victory in what is a No. 1 contender showdown would earn him a shot at the Hex bantamweight title, and effectively wipe away the last 12 months he's spent sidelined with a single win.

"Some people have to rack up three-four-five wins to get a title shot," Thicknesse said.

"That might take 18 months or more to do that. I'm lucky enough coming off my previous win and just constantly training, I get to this scenario where I've set myself up and I'm one fight away from a belt.

"He's got good muay thai striking, he's dangerous if you're going to stand in front of him. He's got solid wrestling, solid jiu-jitsu, so he's pretty well-rounded.

"He's on a three-fight win streak at this point, so he's pretty good, but I'm focused on what I'm going to be doing out there instead of what he's going to try to do to me."