Local UFC fighter riding high on latest victory

After suffering a disappointing loss in his debut fight at UFC Austin back in December 2023, Shiner native Zach “Savage” Reese dusted himself off and climbed back into the proverbial saddle to finish off opponent Julian Marquez just 20 seconds into their fight when the two met in the main event arena at UFC Louisville on June 8.
The Marquez victory earned the local middleweight his first official UFC win in the Saturday Fight Night feature televised by ESPN.
The win brought his mixed martial arts career record to 7-1 and even earned him a $50,000 “Performance of the Night” bonus presented to him before a crowd of 20,000 at Louisville by none other than UFC president Dana White.
We caught up with Reese last Saturday in Shiner to visit on his recent victory and his journey since he was last featured in these very pages about a year ago, not long after he picked up his sixth career win on Dana White’s Contender Series with another decisive first-round victory to earn him his UFC contract.
Fittingly, we opened our conversation with a stray fact we overheard from the announcers of his June 8 fight, just one week prior: “Reese has never seen the second round of a fight.”
The 30-year-old fighter smiled rather meekly as he recalled those words himself.
“Yes sir,” he said, “That’s true. Every fight I’ve had was over in the first round. But I doubt that will always be the case. It’s all about milliseconds and inches, you know. It’s why I train like I do, so I’m ready to last the entire 15 minutes when I need to.”
Not that he’d want to.
Reese shared something his trainers noted about his last opponent: Marquez was, in their words, “a tough fighter.”
“That’s not something you really want to become known for in this business,” Reese said. “Being a ‘tough fighter’ is a nice way of saying you can stand there and really take a beating.”
Thank you, but he’d rather not. Besides, winning just pays so much better.

‘50 Gs’
 

That bonus he got — “50 Gs,” as he put it in a post-fight interview with FOX Sports — was quite a bit more than the typical fight purse, which Reese also collected earlier this month. But the real blessing, he said, comes with the fact he’s now making a living doing something he’s always dreamed about.
“There were times when I started that I’d spend more on tickets so my family could come see me fight than I got for winning the thing,” Reese said.
Way more, in fact, especially when you tag on the costs of getting there, and then training four to five days a week at faraway gyms, just to get in good enough shape to fight in those early rounds.
Or, as he came to know as his training advanced, the month long ventures made to places like Thailand, where he trained alongside hundreds of fighters from all over the world, twice now. 
It may not cost much to stay there, Reese said, but getting there could be a real bear.
He’s done all sorts of work, he said, most recently in the oilfield, though he also put in time at places like HEB and Walmart. He even worked a spell at a chicken farm. Not HAVING to do work like that anymore is something his fighting is only now making possible, he said.
When asked what he intended to do with his bonus money, Reese replied: “I wish I could tell you I’m going to do something stupid and irresponsible with it, but I’ll probably just, you know, get a couple of tattoos and pay off my truck. That’s probably it.”
On the plus side, it frees up more of his time to spend with his wife and their two young daughters. Not incredible amounts, mind you, as he still trains plenty. 
He still divides most work weeks between training gyms in Houston and San Antonio.
“I’m a professional driver most weeks,” he said. “But we just don’t have facilities like that around here.”
Not for lack of talent, he said. Shiner schools are almost always in the playoffs in some sport. Plus, even after having been around the world and back, twice now, working with assorted coaches and trainers, Reese still calls longtime Shiner High School athletic director Daniel Boedeker “one of the best coaches I’ve ever known.”
Perhaps one day, Reese said he might open his own gym and help change all that for aspiring fighters in his hometown. For now, though, it’s all about keeping his head in the game and focusing on that next fight, which he found out just before meeting with the paper Saturday isn’t that far off.
That next fight, one of two remaining on his current UFC contract before he’s eligible for renewal, is set for Saturday, Aug. 24, in Las Vegas. 

 
Highest highs and lowest lows

“I finally found my place, I think,” Reese said over lunch. “You fight like that in front of 20,000 people and feel that energy all around you… Man, there’s nothing like that in the whole world. It’ll break some guys. Me, I never felt calmer my whole life. I can’t explain it. It’s where I belong, I guess.”
Like most things, though, the good often comes with the bad, too. Sure, traveling to Thailand and training with world-class fighters can have its perks, but each trip made is time spent away from family.
Still, it’s all about the long game with his family, he says. “One of my favorite quotes is that boys do what they want, men do what they must. My family gets that, I think.”
It was family, after all, who first encouraged him to try his hand at fighting full time. It was family, too, who helped pick him back up from one of his lowest lows, which centered on that loss in his debut UFC match in Austin.
As he spoke about it, Reese slowly peeled back his shirt sleeve to reveal a shoulder that still looked pretty banged up from his Dec. 6, 2023, loss to Cody Brundage.
As one writer put it, Reese found himself “on the wrong end of a highlights reel” in that match, as Brundage slammed him hard to the mat for the knockout, all of it landing on that one shoulder.
It didn’t need surgery, thankfully, but it sure made training a challenge ahead of his June 8 fight. Still, while losses no doubt sting, it’s all part of the game, Reese said.
“Every fighter in the UFC, except one, loses a round occasionally,” he said. “It’s all about inches and milliseconds, you know, and who might just get lucky sometimes.”
He bobbed when he should have weaved that December day in Austin. “I knew it the second I did it, too,” he said. “And Brundage was waiting for something just like it. I would’ve done the same if our roles were reversed.”
Incidentally, that match, too, was over in the first round. Inches and milliseconds, as he put it.

Remembering Austin

Not to make excuses, but Reese was injured prepping for that Austin fight. He said he thought he could simply out skill his opponent that day. He did not. 
Which made that June win that much sweeter. “I got to show them what a healthy Zach Reese can do,” he said.
As he basked in his victory, Zach said he couldn’t help thinking back to another of life’s highest highs and lowest lows. It’s why he says he dedicated his first UFC win to Austin.
Not the town where he picked up that first loss, but his late brother, Austin Reese.
Ten years his senior, Austin was someone Zach said he always looked up to, even when Austin joked about how his little brother had somehow gotten bigger than him. 
Still, Austin always had his back, and it was he who insisted he give up the oilfield to pursue his UFC dreams.
When the family got word just days before Christmas 2021 that Austin had been killed by a hit and run driver in Houston while he was out on a jog, Zach said he was devastated. 
In recalling the ordeal, he commended the work of local lawman Joel Johnson, who he said must’ve called in a ton of favors because he tracked his brother’s killer down and saw justice served in the case.
Then, just a couple weeks after learning about his brother, Reese said he got one of his greatest blessings ever: A newborn daughter, he and his wife’s first.
“I tell you, man, highest of highs and lowest of lows,” he said. “This one changed my life, though, and it’s why I dedicated that first win to Austin.”
As he shared on UFC Fight Night, the night of that win, “This one’s for you Austin, I love you man. Definitely gonna drink a few beers tonight for you.”
Those weren’t just parting words either, but something of a plug, if you will. Reese is also the only UFC fighter currently who holds a sponsorship with the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, one of a handful of international corporations that have made his little hometown theirs, too.