When Tai Tuivasa offered to share a drink with Harry Hunsucker for stepping up on short notice this weekend and saving his fight, he had no idea his opponent had sworn off alcohol. Hunsucker, in fact, had decided to quit drinking until he made it to the UFC. At UFC Vegas 22, he arrives, filling in for Don’Tale Mayes against Tuivasa.
“Oh, is that right?” Tuivasa exclaimed during Thursday’s virtual media day to promote UFC Vegas 22. “Does that mean he can drink, or he can’t drink?”
Well, technically it means he’ll be able to drink as of Saturday night. So perhaps that drink is still on.
When it comes to what his opponent brings to the table, Tuivasa admitted that “I haven’t really watched him much.”
“Where I’m from, I don’t think you really get time to see what the opponent has. This is the fight business,” continued “Bam Bam,” who will be entering his eighth fight in the UFC. “Thank you to him for being a fighter and stepping up. A lot of fighters these days don’t want to do that. But this is the fight game, we’re going to get in there and punch each other’s heads in anyway.”
Preparing for the fight, Tuivasa decided to forgo training in his native Australia. He opted out of America as well, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, instead preparing in Dubai.
That was actually a roll of the dice that didn’t go as planned. “I originally thought that we were going to fight on Fight Island, but I had it wrong,” Tuivasa admitted. “I wasn’t too sure about Australia and what was going to happen, lockdown or restrictions or this and that. I made the call to go to Dubai. Dubai’s pretty open, they’re pretty free. You can go where you want, you’ve just got to wear a mask.”
As for what he expects in the fight with Harry Hunsucker this weekend, prior to a drink, Tuivasa said that “it’s pretty much the same game plan, it doesn’t matter who I fight. I come to win.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 22 virtual media day scrum with Tai Tuivasa above.
