New York City — Heavyweight Marcin Tybura had all of two weeks to prepare for Jhonata Diniz at UFC 309, though he told media outlets including Cageside Press following a TKO win that he had already been sparring, with teammates having fights coming up.
Tybura (26-9) smashed Diniz, a former kickboxer, with elbows while mounted, opening up multiple cuts towards the end of the second round. When the doctor looked over Diniz ahead of the third, he didn’t law what he saw, and the fight was waved off.
Asked if getting mount and pummeling Diniz was how he’d expected the fight to play out, Tybura admitted that “I wasn’t so sure if it would be easy to mount him, but it was, although he was really tough. He was punching even from his back, and he was still dangerous out there. He was trying to sweep me all the time, it was really hard to stabilize him. I got the mount position pretty easy, but he was tough there. He was really tough.”
With the fight put together on short notice, the win tells Tybura a little something about himself.
“Even though he’s out of the rankings, I think he’s tough. I saw his fights, actually we were fighting on a previous card, on the same card. So I knew he’s tough,” he noted. “Wins like this, [on short notice], builds my confidence for sure.”
As for what’s next, “probably a fresh opponent would be the nicest, but I don’t have names, I don’t have a date. It’s hard to say because this one came up and I agreed, so I’m willing to wait for what comes and then decide.”
However, asked about a fight with Derrick Lewis, who Diniz was supposed to fight just two weeks ago, Tybura said he’d be down. Lewis won their original match-up back in 2018m earning a Performance of the Night bonus for the knockout. That loss was part of the worst stretch of Tybura’s career.
“That would be a rematch for me. Yeah, why not? I don’t see why not. Right now, it’s more like, it was two week’s notice, so celebrate the win, not thinking about my next opponent.”
Watch the full UFC 309 post-fight press conference appearance by Marcin Tybura above.
