Daniel Pineda has been in the sport for a long time and seen a lot of things. With over 15 year as a professional and over 40 fights, it’d be hard to surprise him with anything. As a result, you aren’t going to have him out here trying to cherry pick fights. To a wily veteran like “The Pit”, he’s down and ready to fight anyone.
“No matter what, I’m going fight anybody, I’m not cherry picking nobody,” Pineda said of fighting Tucker Lutz. “I’m fighting whoever they put in front of me. Every challenge the UFC gives me, were going to jump on it, and we’re going to fight.”
While his UFC San Antonio opponent Tucker Lutz might be known for his solid wrestling, Pineda believes a lot of people sleep on what he can do on the ground. Getting in some wars, he believes, has people underrating how good he is when he’s pulling the fight to the mat. So if Lutz believes he has an advantage there, he may be sorely mistaken.
“We’ll see. I haven’t really shown my wrestling, man. All these guys are good. They’re good on the ground, they’re good standing up. It’s hard to go full blast wrestling,” he said. “But if he wants to f*cking make it a wrestling match – there’s a difference between my wrestling and his wrestling.”
But regardless as to whether the fight goes that route, Pineda enters Saturday with loads of confidence. Whether on the feet or the mat, Pineda has a clear prediction for his hometown crowd.
“I’m going to go by second round TKO,” Pineda said.
You can catch Pineda’s fight with Tucker Lutz as part of the UFC San Antonio prelims. Those prelims get started at 4pm EST this Saturday and air on ESPN+.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview at 28:43.
