Jairzinho Rozenstruik will be fighting a former UFC champion this weekend at UFC 252. If that sounds like a story you’ve heard before, it’s for good reason. Going up against Junior Dos Santos, it will be the second time “Bigi Boy” has fought an ex-champ in the octagon.
He certainly made the most of his first opportunity, flatlining Andrei Arlovski last November. Rozenstruik is predicting a similar outcome this weekend, he told media outlets including Cageside Press at the UFC 252 media day this week. “I promise it will be a knockout. I have to set something straight with myself. I had a good camp, I’m going to go in there and get my hand raised.”
The heavyweight from Suriname is hoping that a big performance against “Cigano” will put him right in the thick of things atop the weight class. Stipe Miocic vs. Daniel Cormier 3 tops the UFC 252 card, and depending on the outcome of that fight, there could be a vacant title in the near future — given Cormier’s well-publicized retirement plans.
“Dos Santos did a lot for the sport. He’s still a dangerous guy. If I beat him, I will be right there. Especially with the championship fight happening the same day,” observed Rozenstruik. “I think Francis [Ngannou] is the next guy fighting for the title, and I’m going to go from there, as soon as he has a chance.”
When it comes to the accolades of Dos Santos, one of the promotion’s most popular heavyweights, “I’m not looking at the past,” Rozenstruik said. “He did a lot of things for the sport, I respect him for that. I respect him as an opponent too. But I’m looking forward to what I want to do, where I want to be. He’s the man standing in the way.”
Rozenstruik has long been the hammer in his MMA career, but his last fight saw him as the nail, knocked out by Ngannou. It was the first loss of Jairzinho’s MMA career, but far from his first loss as a professional fighter, given his kickboxing background. But that didn’t make the loss any easier to take.
“No, of course not. Every loss means something’s not good, something’s not right,” he stated. Rozenstuik added that he went back to the gym immediately after the loss to Ngannou. “And here I am, trying to get my hand raised.”
That said, there wasn’t a lot to break down from that loss, at UFC 249 back in May. “You can analyze a lot of things, but if you got caught, you got caught. Anybody can knock somebody out,” he said. “It was a short fight, I can’t say a lot about it.”
Watch the full UFC 252 media day press scrum with Jairzinho Rozenstruik above.
