‘Maybe I’m the biggest screw-up in MMA history’: Joe Giannetti embracing past, finding ‘hope’ ahead of LFA 204

Joe Giannetti was competing under the bright lights of the UFC, just one win away from securing an outright UFC contract at The Ultimate Fighter 27 Finale in July 2018; instead, Giannetti lost the fight, his spot on the UFC roster and, admittedly, hope.

At 29 years of age, Giannetti is taking the Bill Belichick, “one game at a time” approach to his fighting career as he gets set to compete at LFA 204 (streaming live on UFC Fight Pass) this Saturday at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn.

With every fight it seemed, no matter where he was in his career, Giannetti believed his next win would be the one to get him the call back from the UFC. As each disappointing moment passed, it sent Giannetti on a downward spiral. Now, the former, multi-time Cage Titans champion is embracing his past as he looks to a brighter future.

“I’ve been on a five-fight win streak, I’ve been the Cage Titans champ-champ multiple times now and wasn’t back in the UFC, wasn’t even talking to them as far as like, ‘Oh, maybe this card, maybe we’ll pick you up for a short notice,’ just nothing,” Giannetti told MMA Fighting. “So it’s like, you kind of sit there and become a victim to yourself, like, what do I got to do?

“Maybe it is over, and I’ve kind of just embraced like maybe I am the biggest screw-up in MMA history, you know? Like, biggest UFC International Fight Week, co-main eventing for Israel Adesanya, I come out and win the first round, my body shits the bed. I have a horrible performance. I tell everybody the next day, ‘Hey, UFC is going to cut me.’ Everybody tells me I’m crazy. I get cut a few weeks later and then I win some, I lose some, I get some draws, I go on a little span of [missing] the weight a couple of times. I just screwed up.

“Maybe I’m the biggest screw-up in the sport, but that’s gonna be a pretty cool story if I fix it.”

Giannetti had an up-and-down 2024 campaign, winning via ninja choke in 27 seconds at Cage Titans 65 this past May, losing a split decision in the promotion’s Fight of the Year to UFC vet Peter Barrett less than two months later, and then delivering a highlight-reel knockout in his Karate Combat debut in October — just a few weeks before he got married.

After victories in seven of his past nine fights, Giannetti’s goal of fighting in the UFC once again, along with competing in the octagon outside his home city in Boston, is still strong. Now it’s on Giannetti to get over that hump, and do so knowing if he does everything the right way, the call will come if it’s meant to be.

“It’s funny because another thought I had the other day that me and my friends were joking about, right before I left to be on The Ultimate Fighter, I told my roommate at the time, I was like, ‘I’m going to get on The Ultimate Fighter, I’m going to smoke everybody, I’m going to win the finale, I’m going to chase the title, and I’m going to be retired from the sport by the time I’m 30,’” Giannetti said. “That’s just always been it — by the time I’m 29, 30, I’m going to have a title, a couple of defenses, and be out.

“Obviously, so far from what has happened, but that’s the thing is when I was on a route for that not to happen, I think I just kind of lost hope. I was like, ‘Oh, the vision didn’t happen. I’m screwed.’ But I’ve put in the work, I’ve committed to training, I’ve made so many sacrifices in every aspect — physically, financially, whatever — but I think it was just more of a matter of losing hope, like accepting that grind of, ‘This is going to be as hard as you think it’s going to be, and then some.’

“I saw a video recently that [said], ‘Would you run if you didn’t know the distance?’ If somebody told you to get your goal, would you just run until they said stop? And that sounds so simple, like, yeah, I’ll run towards my goal, but you don’t know if it’s a mile. It could be 20 miles. And that’s my thing is I think I was expecting like, ‘Oh, it’ll be 10 miles’ where maybe it’s 30, and it’s kind of just where I’m at now. I have that hope back and I’ll go as long as I have to to make it happen.”