Sioux Falls, SD – Staying ready has paid off for Bellator middleweight Aaron Jeffery as he steps in to face Austin Vanderford on short notice at Bellator 284 on Friday night.
“I was excited man. I talked about this fight before to my managers. When we heard somebody was injured and they needed a fill-in spot they called me right away and they said ‘Hey were you serious about that fight?’ And I said yeah for sure,” Jeffery told Cageside Press among other media on Wednesday.
“And they said ‘Well things are in the works’. And here we are just a few days later so I’m pretty pumped.”
Jeffery (12-3) is coming off a TKO win over Fabio Aguiar at Bellator 282 in June. The quick turnaround puts him against the #2 ranked middleweight in Vanderford (11-1) who is a high-level wrestler.
“I only had like 8 days notice for this fight so there wasn’t a whole lot of bringing anyone in or anything (for camp). I train at a gym with some of the top wrestlers in Canada. Brock University is the school where a bunch of the wrestlers are from. They’ve been the #1 team in Canada for like 8 years,” Jeffery said.
“I’ve got a bunch of guys in my weight class. There’s a heavyweight that I work with. So I have strong wrestlers that I work with week after week all through the year. So I feel prepared for this for sure.”
Beating the #2 ranked middleweight in Bellator is a tall order, but a victory would mean the biggest win in Jeffery’s career.
“Rankings are kind of subjective always right? So I don’t know. If I beat him am I number 2 right away? Or do they just kind of slot me somewhere in? Do I become number 5 or number 6 and he’s behind me? I don’t know,” he said.
“I’ve just got to win this fight and I guess we’ll find out.”
Watch the entire media day scrum with Aaron Jeffery above. Bellator 284 goes down in Sioux Falls, SD on Friday August 12th.
