Cutting weight is an “easy job” these days for UFC and PFL veteran David Zawada, who returns to action at Oktagon 58 on Saturday.
“I feel good, I feel strong in this division, and I think in this division I can be a real problem here in Oktagon, on this roster,” Zawada told Cageside Press in an exclusive interview ahead of his fight with
The idea to move to middleweight was actually floated by Zawada’s brother, but the longtime 170lb’er initially resisted. After all, he wasn’t having any issues making weight.
“I didn’t have a problem with the weight cut, so I still worked at welterweight in the UFC and the PFL. When I came back to Germany, to Oktagon and talked to Ondřej [Novotný, Oktagon founder], I came here from two loses from PFL and when I wanted to go back to Oktagon in the welterweight division, there wasn’t some guy who wanted to fight me,” Zawada recalled. “That’s what he said, it’s difficult to find somebody to fight me, because my last fights, I had four losses, just one win.”
Finding an opponent was one motivating factor. Another was retaining his power. While Zawada “never struggled with the weight cut,” he added that “I think the problem with the weight cut was I lose a lot of power, and conditioning. Everybody knows it’s not healthy or stuff to cut over 15 pounds in a week. I think also, I get older, so I think this step was the best to continue as long as I can in this sport, to move up.”
Zawada didn’t have any issues with strength in his last fight, a win over Hojat Khajevand, so the move appears to have paid of. “It was like an easy fight between a striker and a wrestler. That he can take me down, it wasn’t a surprise for me but you see my cardio, my stamina was perfect. I move forward, I make pressure, I could hold the pressure and in the end that was the key to win.”
At Oktagon 58 in Prague, Czech Republic this Saturday, Zawada now faces Marek Mazuch. “He’s a southpaw, so he has different standup. He likes to box, he’s a typical striker, a brawler, stand and bang. I didn’t see too much from the ground, because the people stand with him, they get knocked out or they knock out him,” Zawada gave as a scouting report.
“I think the only weapon that he has is his hands. I have more and more and more weapons for him. I can strike with him, for me it’s no problem because I have good knees, I have good kicks. I can box with him, I can wrestle him down. I can grapple with him, so I think my experience in this fight will be most important for the win. Because he never faced a guy like me.”
Watch our full interview with Oktagon 58’s David Zawada above.
