Kansas City — After a thunderous TKO finish of former heavyweight Tanner Boser at UFC Kansas City, Moldovan 205lb’er Ion Cutelaba proclaimed that “the Hulk is back!”
Ion “The Hulk” Cutelaba had been badly in need of a win, after losing three straight fights, leaving his back against the wall. An intense figure at the best of times, Cutelaba seemed ready to explode once weigh-ins hit Friday, and carried that energy into Saturday night.
“I think you saw what energy I brought into this Fight Week, and into this fight,” Cutelaba (17-9-1, 1NC) told media outlets including Cageside Press following the fight. “I didn’t have any kind of pressure on me because I knew and I was sure of the preparation that I did.”
“Hulk is back, and the best, and brutal,” he added, forgoing his translator.
Whether or not The Hulk being back means the return of green bodypaint at weigh-ins remains to be seen. “Let’s wait and see,” Cutelaba said on that front.
Cutelaba made clear that he had changed a lot during his training camp for the Boser fight, without getting into specifics.
“It feels great. Honestly, I’ve done so much to win this fight. I’ve done so much work, so much preparation. I’ve changed a lot, I’ve made a lot of changes, a lot of differences. I think you will see so much more from me. You probably even saw the changes right now in the fight itself, but there’s so much more to come from me because of these changes.”
He was also confident in putting away a fighter in Boser that has been notoriously hard to finish. “To be honest, while preparing for him, I trained six or seven different finishes. So I prepared really well for him.”
Though Boser protested the stoppage, Cutelaba knew the fight was over. “Of course I knew it,” he stated. “Yeah I knew it. I knew he was done.”
Watch the full UFC Kansas City post-fight press conference with Ion Cutelaba above.
