LAS VEGAS -- Robert Follis may be gone, but UFC lightweight Kevin Lee says he's never taken his late coach's instructions more to heart than right now.
Lee (16-3) will meet Edson Barboza in a five-round main event on Saturday, a UFC Fight Night in Atlantic City.
It will be Lee's first appearance since he came up short in an interim title fight against Tony Ferguson in October -- as well as his first without head coach Follis, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in December.
Lee, 25, hasn't replaced Follis as far as naming a head coach, and says he's only now putting everything Follis taught him into effect.
"Me and Rob were very close and we were more similar than people realize," Lee told ESPN. "You look at us, and he's a big mountain man, wearing sandals. I've got on shoes worth more than anything he owns. But at our core, we were very similar.
"[His death] made me re-evaluate some things. He used to tell me things that I would ignore or push to the side because I'm young. 'Get your hands up,' or, 'Be in the fight all the time,' -- he would tell me things through his wisdom and I wouldn't listen. But now, I think it's really forced me to listen."
On a personal level, one area Lee is looking to improve on is managing his own emotion and stress ahead of a fight.
Lee dealt with a staph infection leading up to his interim title fight last year, in addition to a difficult weight cut. Although staph infections can be common in MMA, Lee believes his mental health affected his physical health for that fight.
"I probably could have taken a little more stress off myself," Lee said. "It was my first headliner on pay-per-view. I was moving houses and I ended up going through a divorce. I was just going through a lot of things that I internalized and all of that came out physically.
"If your mind ain't there, the body will show it. That's one of the things I'm learning with age."
Moving forward, Lee's age should work in his favor He's only 25, but has now had 12 fights in the UFC, including a championship bout.
Despite an overcrowded lightweight division -- that includes unknown factors like Conor McGregor's legal status, Ferguson's recovery from knee injury and Nate Diaz's willingness to accept a fight -- Lee believes a win over Barboza (19-5) would land him a title fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov.
He missed an opportunity to bring clarity to this division last year, the loss to Ferguson. But he's ready to right that wrong in 2018.
"I apologize for the whole fiasco," Lee said. "If I had shown up healthy last October, I feel like [Nurmagomedov's title win at UFC 223] would have looked totally different and the division would have a lot more clarity.
"But I'll clear it all up after this one. Once I get that title back, I'll make sure the people know who the real king around here is."