Abdul Razak Alhassan will return to the Octagon this coming Saturday at UFC Vegas 80, as he takes on Joe Pyfer.
“Judo Thunder” was scheduled to fight Bruno Ferreira on two separate occasions earlier this year, but had to pull out both times due to injury.
The 38-year-old briefly touched on the injury at the UFC Vegas 80 media day and how that allowed him to discover a new side to his mental fortitude. “You guys know this sport. You start camp, injuries and stuff happens and it was a bad one so I had to take time off to heal and everything.
“I feel like I’ve gotten so strong mentally, I was always strong mentally because of the African side of me is like you have to grind for everything you’ve got, it sucked. So I had a different type of mentality but I feel like there was a different mental game that I could add to that and I feel like now I’m there.”
Alhassan’s last outing came against the Brazilian, Claudio Ribeiro, back in January where he scored an impressive second round knockout.
His opponent for this one, Joe Pyfer, is coming in with a lot of hype because of his impressive prior performances. Having said that, the Ghanaian stated that ‘there’s levels to this’ and believes Pyfer has never faced anyone like him.
“I think he’s a good fighter, I would never talk down on anyone, in the UFC there’s no easy fight but there’s levels to this. I know he’s good but he’s never faced anyone like me. He’s going to stand there and realise this is the f*cking son of Alhassan Gaber, you do not f*ck with Alhassan Gaber. That’s for sure.”
That said, Alhassan still doesn’t like Joaquin Buckley. “You guys know that guy’s a f*cking bitch, seriously. And also, everything he does now is just for clout. But he’s a cool dude. One thing I realized, he acts hard for the camera, but when it’s in the back, he’s all nice.” Alhassan added that he doesn’t care about Buckley right now, because Pyfer is his focus.
“For the future, you guys will see me smack him. I hope he comes back. I’m getting old, I don’t want to go back to 70, but I really hope he comes up, back to 80. If that fight happens I promise you guys, most of the fight is going to be just my palm open, just smacking the sh*t out of him the whole f*cking time.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 80 media day appearance from Abdul Razak Alhassan above.
