Brandon Halsey lost his belt last year after missing weight. Then, with a chance to reclaim it, he was knocked out by a liver kick.
It was a bad 2015 for the former Bellator middleweight champion. It also gave him a chance to look inward and make important changes.
"Am I really where I want to be at as a fighter?" Halsey said he asked himself. "Have I progressed in these three years to where I want to be? I didn't."
After losing to Rafael Carvalho by second-round knockout in October, Halsey did some soul searching.