Las Vegas — Featherweight prospect Austin Bashi makes his promotional debut at UFC Vegas 101 this Saturday, coming into the promotion as one of the hottest prospects in North America.
That doesn’t mean the pressure is getting to Bashi (13-0), the 23-year old Dana White’s Contender Series winner told media outlets including Cageside Press on Wednesday.
“People always ask me ‘how’s the pressure going?’ and stuff. For me, when that cage door is locked, all that stuff goes out the window for me,” Bashi explained. “The lights, all that dims out and I’m focused on is my opponent.”
His opponent in this case is Christian “CeeRod” Rodriguez, who has a similar number of fights as Bashi overall, but with one key difference: six bouts inside the UFC octagon.
“My opponent is a tough guy obviously. He has a good amount of UFC experience, he’s beat some tough guys,” noted Bashi. “But my pace, my pressure and my game is going to break him.”
“I think he has six fights in the UFC now, and this is my debut. Usually people get easier match-ups for their debut, but I can’t tell you how excited I am for this one.”
Being undefeated, 23-years old, and carrying a top prospect label means more and more focus on the pressure of Bashi’s debut. But has he did earlier, Bashi dismissed any notion of feeling that pressure ahead of his UFC debut.
“Something about me is, no matter what the media is saying, no matter how big someone is trying to hype me up, I think the reason I’m undefeated and keep continuing to beat these guys is because I throw all that out the window and I don’t think about any of that.”
Watch the full UFC Vegas 101 media day appearance by the debuting Austin Bashi above.
