When Chad Anheliger heads into the cage of Saturday, he’ll be the shorter fighter. That might not be new for him, but the difference is pretty staggering. His opponent Jose Johnson will be standing six inches taller than him with even more on the reach. Still, Anheliger is unbothered by it all.
“It’s not that different for me as a smaller guy, shorter guy. I spent my life fighting bigger guys. Whether it was in training or when I played hockey – that’s always been what it is,” he said. “Finding somebody taller [to train with] is easy.”
And in training camp, he’s found plenty of people with the height of Jose Johnson, but few who could also match the weight. However, he sees that as an advantage for him going into the fight.
“My whole training camp has been with bigger guys. They have the height, so I can feel that out,” he said. “Not a lot of people have that weight to go with it, but they have more so it’s all good.”
All in all, Anheliger thinks that people put too much thought into this portion of the fight. While he likes that it seems to help draw more interest in the fight, he thinks there are so many things that are more important in determining a fight winner.
“It really doesn’t change much – the height thing. Of all the things in a fight, there’s so much ahead of how tall somebody is,” Anheliger points out. “Their skill, experience, timing, the gameplanning. Even strength is above height.”
He’ll look to prove he’s better in all of the important ways this Saturday. His fight with Jose Johnson will take place on the ESPN+ prelims of UFC Vegas 82. That portion of the card starts at 2pm EST.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview at 35:23.
