Patrick Cote’s third act in the UFC will likely be his last, but it is shaping up to be his finest.

The 36-year-old welterweight has come and gone from the organization on three occasions over his 14-year mixed martial arts career and is peaking at the right time as he prepares for a co-main event bout with Donald Cerrone at UFC Fight Night 89 on Saturday in Ottawa.

“I fight just because I want to, not because I need to, and it helped me a lot just to go there and have fun, spend time less stressful,” Cote told TSN.ca. “I’m going there just having fun and it’s going pretty well since I put that in my mind.”

The Rimouski, Que., native broke into the UFC as an undefeated 24-year-old prospect at UFC 50 in 2004, suffering a unanimous decision loss in his debut against one of the sport’s biggest names - former light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz. Cote went 0-3 in his first stint with the organization and quickly found himself back in Canada fighting for promotions in British Columbia and Edmonton.

Cote (23-9) earned a second tour with the UFC after finishing second in The Ultimate Fighter: The Comeback in November 2006. He went on a 5-1 run in his return to the organization before squaring off against middleweight champion Anderson Silva at UFC 90 on October 25, 2008. Less than 30 seconds into the third round of the championship bout, Cote stepped forward to engage with Silva and tore the meniscus in his right knee. Cote lay screaming in pain while Silva walked away victorious.

After nearly a year and a half off, Cote returned in underwhelming fashion in 2010 and fell in consecutive matches, bringing his losing streak to three and once again sending him to lower promotions north of the border.

With plenty of fight left, Cote jumped at the opportunity to fill in for an injured Rich Franklin against veteran Cung Le at UFC 148 in July 2012. He suffered a unanimous decision loss.

Cote said the losses made him realize he had strayed far from what made him successful in the past. The brawler began to use his most valuable weapons - boxing and wrestling - and stopped overthinking his opponents.

He began to trust himself again.

“I think I was losing myself a little bit in that game before. I was trying to do too many things at the same time. Now, I’m just getting back on my base,” he said.

“I’m a striker, I punch hard, and if I need to use my wrestling or my ground game like I did in my last two fights, I’m going to use it. But at the end of the day, I have to not forget who I am. I’m a standup guy. I have a good chin and I’m not scared of anybody on my feet … With all the experience, all those things, you approach the fight in the smarter way.”

His body has evolved over the years as well. He went to school to study nutrition and learned ways to maximize performance. He also recruited coaches and professionals to guide him through the process of becoming a healthier athlete.

The result was a drop in weight class from middleweight (185 lbs.) to welterweight (170 lbs.), an entirely new lifestyle, and a new lease on his fighting career.

“It’s all about the knowledge we didn’t have before. I used to fight at 185 before and I thought I knew nutrition, but I didn’t know anything. Now I’m working with a professional - a guy who’s taking care of my nutrition, he’s taking care of my blood. We do blood test, we do a lot of test to know exactly what I’m missing in my body and what I need, so this is the technology right now,” Cote said.

“This is science. Nutrition is science now and you need to invest in yourself and invest in your team to know exactly what to do to arrive at the fight in the best shape as possible, physically and mentally. For sure, for me, the nutrition is a big, big, big part of why I’m performing well right now.”

Cote is 6-1 since the loss at UFC 148 and is about to face the toughest challenge yet of his resurgent run.

Cerrone (29-7, 1 NC) is coming off a first-round submission victory over Alex Oliveira at UFC Fight Night 83 in February and is 9-2 in his last 11 fights. He’s showed his versatility in those nine victories with three submissions, three knockouts, and three unanimous decisions.

Cerrone’s resume is one to respect and revere, but it’s also an important aspect of Cote’s preparation.

“The advantage with Cerrone is that he’s fought so many times that we have tons and tons of video that we can watch,” he said. “But he doesn’t do [many] different things in every fight. This is the style he has and he’s very aggressive when he’s going forward. He’s very accurate when he’s going forward.”

“If you let him take the pace of the fight he’s very dangerous, so we are aware of that and that’s why we are in such good shape. My striking is so accurate right now that we’re going to go forward and it’s going to be a tough fight.”

In his third and potentially final UFC act, Cote is living up to the expectations placed on him as a much younger man. A win over Cerrone would earn him the right to campaign for a fight against a high-ranked welterweight, and maybe even the champion Robbie Lawler.

It’s a reality that sits in the back of his mind, but he won’t let it distract him from the task at hand.

“Before when I was less experienced, maybe, but now I’m taking one fight at a time and I’m just enjoying the moment,” he said. “Putting Cerrone away puts me right in the mix to have another title fight so we’ll see what’s going to happen. You put me against Robbie Lawler in the same cage and it’s fireworks right there.

“I’m not thinking too far [ahead] because I have my hands full with Cerrone.”