Charles Jourdain thanks Jean Silva for life-changing knockout loss

Jean Silva knocked Charles Jourdain back into his senses by knocking him out. 

Jourdain (18-8) is coming off a unanimous decision win in a “Fight of the Night” battle against Kyler Phillips in front of his home crowd at UFC Winnipeg last weekend. This was Jourdain’s third consecutive bonus-winning performance in as many outings since he moved to bantamweight from featherweight in 2024. “Air” credits the impressive streak to a knockout loss against Silva, which prompted the move to bantamweight. Weeks following the knockout loss, Jourdain’s wife informed him that she was pregnant. Jourdain had to make a choice between giving up his dreams and turning his life around, and he took the tougher path.

“I have to thank Jean Silva,” Jourdain said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “Ever since I got knocked out, he put sense into me—going to 135, three in a row, three bonuses in a row. Jean Silva changed my life with that uppercut… I had no hope anymore for myself until my wife came to see me after the Jean Silva fight, two or three weeks later. She said, ‘Hey, I’m pregnant.’ So I’m like, ‘Oh, OK. Now what type of father do I want to be?’ The guy who just gives up on his dream? No. I changed everything drastically.”

While Jourdain was 9-1 going into his UFC debut in 2019, the Canadian’s UFC career was marked with inconsistency. Alternating between wins and losses, Jourdain decided to move to bantamweight after Silva sent him to the shadow realm with an uppercut at UFC 303, also putting him on a two-fight slump. Jourdain has since racked up the longest winning streak of his UFC career. Jourdain admits that he was just getting by in the UFC based on his talent until the loss against Silva. However, Jourdain realizes that rising to the top in the UFC requires a lot more than just talent, which he is now ready to give.

Changing Course

“Deep down I knew I was not doing the right thing,” Jourdain said. “I was eating pizzas, I was smoking weed. I was just fighting in the UFC riding on a wave of talent. But if you want to get up there and stay in the UFC and be good in the UFC, you need to have big amount of professionalism, which I didn’t have. I was just cutting five pounds to make the featherweight limit and fighting these guys, losing split decisions, blah, blah. I was not taking my career seriously.”