Sydney, Australia — Australian featherweight Jack Jenkins sees a bit of a void on the UFC 312 card when it comes to star power, and he plans on stepping up and filling it.
Paired up with Gabriel Santos, who enters off his first win in the promotion, Jenkins noted during Wednesday’s media day that “this guy’s a top ten talent, he just doesn’t have a number next to his name. And I believe I’m a top ten talent that doesn’t have a number next to his name. So it’s a great chance for both of us to come in here, on a big Pay-Per-View that you could say maybe lacks a little bit of star power.”
“We’ve got a vacuum for that. There’s a void there, and I think either one of us could easily step into that role and sort of fill that star power on the card.”
Jenkins and Santos feature in the night’s featured preliminary card bout, leading into the Pay-Per-View, and he believes the UFC has booked the fight for a reason.
“It’s a massive deal for me. The UFC, they make plans within plans. They don’t just do things for no reason. There is a lack of, we don’t have a [Dan] Hooker, we don’t have a Kai Kara-France, we don’t have [Israel] Adesanya, we don’t have [Alexander] Volkanovski, we don’t have a Bam Bam [Tai Tuivasa], we don’t have those guys on this card. So the UFC is giving us this opportunity and saying ‘step up, be the star you want to be.’ And I fully intend to fill that void.”
Jenkins later explained that he’s expecting bigger things, bigger names with a win this Saturday in Sydney. “They obviously. they know how good Santos is, so this is a test for me to get past this one, and we’ll throw some bigger fish.”
Watch the full UFC 312 media day appearance by Jack Jenkins above.