Tim Boetsch (Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

By Kelsey Mowatt

Tim Boetsch buzzed the MMA world at UFC Fight Night 47 by scoring a come from behind win over Brad Tavares, and the middleweight believes he kept his roster spot in doing so.

Heading into the August 16th bout, Boetsch had dropped three of his last four fights, and was quickly submitted by Luke Rockhold in April. A loss to Tavares would have been a considerable setback for “The Barbarian”, who not that long ago, had won four straight fights.

“Ya. I knew I had to win this fight if I wanted to keep my job,” Boetsch noted on a recent episode of Full Contact Fighter Radio. “I didn’t expect to do it in the manner that I did, the comeback knockout, but I knew I had to pull out the win to keep my career in the UFC going, because this sport is a performance based sport. If you don’t perform then you don’t have a job.”

“So, you have to keep performing well, and I feel like I pulled that off,” Boetsch added. “I’m looking towards the future now and I’m very excited about where we’re going to go from here.”

Boetsch absorbed a couple of hard shots from Tavares early on, and was cut in two places, before he floored the rugged fighter with a series of punches in round two. The bout was quickly compared to Boetsch’s memorable, come-from-behind, win over Yushin Okami in 2012.

“Oh for sure,” said Boetsch, when asked if he was further behind at UFC 144, when he came roaring back to stop the former middleweight contender. “Yushin was busting me up. For the first five minutes I think he just picked me apart with his jab, and then if I recall, in the second round, I think I spent three quarters of that round mounted, with him dropping bombs on me. So ya; I definitely was much farther behind against Yushin and much more beat up.”

Tim Boetsch kicking Hector Lombard (photo via UFC.com/ ZUFFA)

“But obviously, whenever there’s a comeback involved they’re going to compare it to something similar,” the 33 year-old fighter furthered. “So that fight comes to mind for a lot of people for sure.”

Unlike Boetsch’s victory over Okami, however, following UFC FN 47 the 18-7 fighter was handed a fight night bonus. Boetsch picked up one of the card’s “Performance of the Night” honors, as well as an extra $50 grand.

“This is the first bonus, performance or knockout, or any of those bonuses, this is the first one I’ve landed,” said Boetsch, who scored the win in his native state of Maine. “I’ve had some feedback in the past from people, who obviously don’t know any better, like ‘ya, you’ve landed a bunch of bonuses’. Well, you can check my tax forms, but I haven’t gotten any of those checks.”

“I’m sure I’ve been close a bunch of times; I’ve had some really good performances that were on the cusp of winning me a bonus, but no, this is the first one,” added Boetsch, who is currently ranked #14 in the UFC’s 185 pound division. “That just makes it all the much sweeter.”