Las Vegas, NV – UFC bantamweight Payton Talbott will make his official debut against Nick Aguirre at UFC Vegas 82 on Saturday night.
“I did quite a bit of research and he’s a wrestler. It’s like classic striker versus wrestler matchup,” Talbott told reporters on Wednesday.
“Did a lot of studying. Watched him talk in his interviews, and I got a pretty good feel for who he is.”
Talbott did see that Aguirre has respect for him and doesn’t just see him as a debuting fighter who he can easily add to his resume.
“I thought it was really refreshing to see that he has an accurate depiction of the fight, and he’s not just like writing me off as like another dude that he’s going to KO. So that was cool to see,” said Talbott.
“He’s prepared for 15 minutes of hell and I am as well.”
Coming off the Contender Series and making his debut at UFC Vegas 82 Talbott knows he’ll have to grow up in the promotion.
“There’s still a lot of room for improvement and I’m making improvements with every fight,” he said.
Talbott’s friends and family compare him to Sean O’Malley, who is Talbott’s dream opponent, and he spoke on the new bantamweight champ.
“I thought it was pretty cool to watch and extremely surprising. He was doing very small things throughout the first round that were paying dividends throughout the fight that Aljo just didn’t pick up on,” he said.
“I think it was very well deserved and I’m happy to see that he has the belt now with how cool and marketable he is as a person.”
Watch the entire media day scrum with Payton Talbott above. He takes on Nick Aguirre at UFC Vegas 82.
