Think you can knock this East Rockaway man down?

He got knocked down, and got back up again — literally. Charlie “The Cannibal” Campbell, an East Rockaway native and rising MMA star, returned to the octagon on June 16 for a stellar, career-changing fight.

Campbell’s last match was nearly a year ago in Las Vegas for the Dana White’s Contender Series, where winners have a chance to get a highly-coveted UFC contract. At first, Campbell seemed to have the upper hand, but opponent Chris Duncan came back with a fight-ending knockout. 

“Losing on The Contender series was initially seeming like the worst thing in the world,” Campbell, 27, said. “Within a split second, I went from feeling my best to hitting what seems like rock bottom in the sport.”

Campbell returned home with a concussion rather than his UFC dream. The following months were difficult. He felt like he disappointed his supporters, especially from Long Island.

“There was a time where a majority of my thoughts were leading in the direction that I may never be able to fight again,” Campbell said. 

He added that often, fighters who are knocked out never return to their previous level of performance — that they’re never the same fighter. Campbell said he was haunted by the fear of a knockout like in the Contender series happening again.

The concussion wasn’t the only obstacle Campbell was facing — to lose the match, the potential UFC contract, and the support of many fans was very difficult to process. He took that disappointment and shame and turned it into a growing experience.

“I fell from a really high point, but it was either going to make or break me,” he said. “Either I stayed there at the bottom, or bounced back up higher than I fell from in the first place. It was up to me to take that loss and create a positive out of it, or just let it destroy you forever.”

Through doing psychology work, Campbell developed an “inverse paranoia,” or the belief that the world is full of positives, and that obstacles are opportunities for growth. Rather than viewing his loss as the end of the line, Campbell learned to view it as a life event that took his story further.

“I realized that failure can be one of the biggest gifts of all,” he said.

So how did Campbell know he was finally ready for his next fight? He didn’t. It was a leap of faith.

“I started to just look at it like: the world has given me an opportunity here to prove that I'm not a quitter,” he said. “That no matter what life throws at me, I'm going to be resilient and still succeed in my dreams.”

He felt he owed it to all his supporters — but most importantly, to himself — to get back in there. He said there was no way that fight would be the end of his story.

So on June 16, nearly a year after the Dana White Contender series, Campbell returned to the octagon to face Josh “The Finance” Streaker, an unorthodox fighter. It had been difficult for Campbell’s training partners to properly replicate Streacker’s ever-changing stance. So though he had a strategy ready going into the fight, Campbell knew he would have to trust his instincts and make adjustments on the fly.

Going into the fight, “anytime I had a negative feeling or a thought, I just let it go,” Campbell said. “It wasn't easy to perform the skills, but with practice and a lot of application in my training leading up to the fight, I was prepared to focus on what was in front of me.”

When the bell rang, Campbell was ready. His months of training, both physical and mentally, had led to this.

But the fight was over nearly as soon as it had started — Campbell knocked Streacker out with a right hook two minutes into the first round, securing the quickest win of his career. Campbell fell to his knees after the knockout was called.

“Not a million dollars can buy that feeling because I’d just been through so much, psychologically, over the last 10 months,” he said. “It just felt like a dream.

“After I'd lost [the Contender series], I was worrying and wishing that I could be the guy I was before I got knocked out,” Campbell said. The June 16 win “proves to myself what I've been telling myself for the last few months, which is that I am better than I was before I lost.”

Campbell said that his commitment his physical and mental health made him a better fighter and able to handle whatever life throws at him.

“I feel like I can succeed in anything in life, because I'm not sure anything could be as difficult as that was,” Campbell said. “There are skills I learned. I would not be the person I am today if, when I lost, I hadn’t started to seek help.”

“I learned skills that are going to help me in life forever, even outside of sports,” he said.

He hopes that his experience teaches others — especially kids from Long Island — the importance of failing forward. Anyone looking for more highlights from Campbell’s career can visit the “Charlie The Cannibal Campbell” page on Facebook.