Darren Stewart will fight happy for the first time in years when he takes on Eryk Anders next weekend.
The Londonder has endured a stop-start run in the UFC having been a victim of some tough weight cuts and dodgy decisions in his 13 fights with the promotion.
He lost out on a razor-tight split decision to Kevin Holland, who would go on to become a main event player in the middleweight title pictgure, and struggled to make the 185lb limit.
And just seconds before the end of the first round in his first bout with Anders, an illegal knee saw the referee and doctors call the fight off as a no contest, the second in Stewart's UFC career.
But after his opponent Anders agreed to move up in weight for their rematch at UFC 263, Stewart has finally found happiness in the gym.
"I'm 30 now," he told Mirror Fighting. "Who knows if I'll ever make it to the belt, I need to end my career happy and I haven't been happy going into a camp for 11 fights since I was at light-heavyweight.
"Who's happy to make weight? Yeah, I've got a little bit to lose, that's cool, but I'm not coming down from 220 lbs to 185, I'm not even 220 now.
"I'm eating more and losing weight, I'm stress-free and stress holds weight in the body.
"When I'm going into a middleweight camp, I'll be 220lbs or more, sometimes it's 227 because I'm so stressed thinking 's***, I've got to make middleweight' and my body holds it all.
"Now I'm eating, eating, eating 4,000 calories a day and it's just dropping down so I'm really looking forward to this one."
After the controversial finish to their last bout, Stewart is hoping the change in weight class will be enough of a factor to change the dynamic of the fight, which he was arguably losing before the decision was made to stop it.
And he plans to stay at 205lbs, despite concerns over his 6" height, which makes him smaller than some of the division's top names like 6"2 champion Jan Blachowicz.
"I'm not a middleweight," he explained. "I only fight there because of my height.
"Nobody said 'Darren, go middleweight because you're not strong enough, you're not fast enough, not powerful enough,' they say it because of my height.
"I'm strong at middleweight, I hit people and they say 'f***ing hell, Darren hits like a tank,' what's that going to be like when I'm hitting people at light heavyweight.
"I don't give a s*** that they're all bigger than me."
Stewart's fight with Anders takes place on the prelims of UFC 263, which also features British fighters Leon Edwards and Joanne Calderwood who will take on Nate Diaz and Lauren Murphy.
And the event will also feature a full crowd of fans in Arizona to watch a double headliner of title fight rematches at middleweight between Israel Adesanya and Marvin Vettori as well as flyweight between Deiveson Figueiredo and Brandon Moreno.
