The Korean Zombie had his first UFC title shot against Jose Aldo back in 2013. He would go on to lose by fourth-round TKO and he took almost four years off to do his Korean military service.

Almost a decade later, Korean Zombie is set to fight for the title against Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 273. Chan Sung Jung admits that looking back, he wasn't ready for that first title shot in 2013.

“When he fought Aldo, he wasn’t actually ready at that time,” Jung’s head coach Eddie Cha said while translating for the featherweight on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour.

“He said nine years ago, nobody could beat Jose Aldo. Nobody even thought about beating him, nobody entertained that [idea]. And he’s so happy he was fortunate enough to fight him, because he has the experience now to actually step up and win a title shot.

“He’s always believed that someday he’d get another title shot,” the duo added. “It’s always been his dream to get another title shot and become a champion. And so he just stayed persistent. He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to get this opportunity again, but he worked his butt off, and the persistence and the hard work — and here we are today, April 9th.”

Korean Zombie agreed to step in on short notice and fight for the title at UFC 273, this time around, he's ready. He didn't even care what the other featherweights were thinking when he took the fight.

“He didn’t campaign because he just thought that he should be next in line,” Cha said in translating Jung. “Out of the top five guys, he’s the only one coming off a win, and so he was somewhat expecting it, but he was also surprised when he did get it.

“He wasn’t too worried about [how other featherweights felt about the decision]. He’s saying he’s prepared for so many five-round fights — I think he had eight main events in a row or something like that. Like he said earlier, he was the only guy coming off a win, he didn’t really worry too much about who got the fight, but he just felt like he was next in line.”