Lucas Alexander was supposed to fight David Onama this weekend at UFC Sao Paulo.
He won’t be.
Ahead of his fight with Onama, his opponent pulled out due to injury. We spoke to Alexander (8-3) after the news broke, and he’s taking the fight falling through in stride.
“Sh*t happens brother, all the time. I think it was the same day Jon Jones pulled out, too. Shoulder injury. Or the day before,” he told Cageside Press. “What we do is not healthy at all. I know how the body can just give up sometimes on you. I see it all the time in the gym, it’s happened to me. I just hope he has a speedy recovery and he’ll be good to go soon.”
When we spoke to Alexander, who is originally from Rio, a six hour drive to Sao Paulo, he was hopeful that the UFC would keep him on the card. That didn’t pan out; instead, he’s been added to UFC Vegas 82 on November 18. He’ll be taking on Indonesian Jeka Saragih.
Alexander has been spending a lot of time getting ready for his next fight. That’s because he was determined to fight in Brazil.
“I’ve been in camp since August, just to have an idea. I didn’t have an opponent, but I had the mentality that I had a fight in 12 weeks, so I’m going to take care of my body and make everything right, make everything perfect. So I’ve been doing that since August. And then I went all the way from August, no opponent, all the way to the end of September. I literally thought I wasn’t going to fight anymore, because there was like 13 fights already booked.”
Then the UFC gave him Onama — with the event already sold out. Perhaps that’s a silver lining, since his friends and family couldn’t get tickets anyway, they would have been watching the bout on TV.
As for the David Onama fight, Alexander still has interest in the bout. “Yeah we’re probably going to get it down the line,” he stated.
Watch our full interview with Lucas Alexander above.
