Julian Erosa has faced a lot of up and comers in his long UFC career. He’s turned away more than one hot prospect as well – including nabbing a guillotine over Christian Rodriguez in his last one. However, when the UFC called for a fight in Miami, this time it wasn’t a youngster on the docket across from the 35-year old. Instead, it was legendary tough guy, Darren Elkins, which is a puzzle he’s looking forward to solving.
“I’m excited about it. It’s funny because Darren Elkins, the nickname, ‘The Damage’, he has the nickname for the opposite reason of why you would want the nickname, right? Like, if you’re ‘The Damage’, it would be because you were causing damage,” Erosa said with a laugh. “But he takes damage and is able to keep coming forward. And that’s one of his toughest aspects of his fighting game that you’ve got to overcome.”
While Elkins has always been a tough out like that, Erosa thinks he shouldn’t be overlooked in that regard. In fact, he thinks he’s more like Elkins that people realize. That’s a fact that he’ll try to fight off as he tries to implement his gameplan.
“But for me, I think specifically, I’ve always been a tough guy like Elkins. I think I’m just a little more skilled than he is. He is tough,” he said. “But I bring that same toughness and I bring that same cardio and I bring that same willingness to fight. So I think for me, it’s going to be a bit of a fine line between brawling with him and trying to be a bit more technical. Because I think if the fight is a standing technical fight, I think I win it nine times out of ten.”
While he knows that technical fight goes his way most of the time, he also recognizes that it isn’t easy to stay doing that. If he does fall back into the chaos, maybe he’ll just get one of those bonuses.
“If it becomes a dirty fight, which I do enjoy doing, it becomes more of a coin flip. So we’ll see what happens. Usually when that cage door closes, game plans start to go out the window, especially when you get punched,” Erosa said. “Being in the firefight is something that’s so fun to me that I hope to stay on game plan, but it might be like a fight of the night contender.”
You can see this chaos this Saturday on the prelims of UFC 314. Erosa’s fight with Elkins airs on the main preliminary card, which begins at 8pm EST on ESPN+.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview on the most recent Top Turtle MMA Podcast. The interview airs at 1:59.
