Mairon Santos made it clear when he won the Ultimate Fighter that he wasn’t looking for a slow build. With 14 fights already in his professional career, he felt that he already had the experience and skills to tangle in the top 15. So when the UFC came with a call to fight Sodiq Yusuff in just his third fight in the promotion, you might imagine he didn’t hesitate.
“My first reaction was let’s go. That’s what I want. My dream was to come to the UFC to fight the best and he’s a big name,” Santos said. “I was just super excited and I’m still am. I just can’t wait man. Like I feel like these days are going so slow right now because I really want to fight… He’s a big name and I know I win over him gonna change my career, so I want to make a statement against him.”
However, that call didn’t come in the division that Yusuff was previously ranked in. Instead of the division that Santos had won the Ultimate Fighter in, the UFC wanted the featherweights to do battle at lightweight. Although that would be off putting for some, it was already something that Santos had considered. However, he still isn’t sure if that’s his permanent home or not.
“I’m excited because it’s a new weight class. I have to cut less weight so I’m happy with that too,” he said. “Actually that was the opportunity that came. That’s something that’s like in my head a little bit after my last fight but I haven’t decided yet. After the fight I’ll talk with the team managers and everything and see but the UFC needed fights for this card and I said to my managers I can make 155 and he said okay I’ll be in touch and then this opportunity came. So it’s not permanent but we’ll see after the fight.”
Part of the decision to stay or not will come with the result of this fight. If things go the way that he thinks it will, we might see him back in this class again.
“I think it’s a good matchup for me because he’s a striker to come forward and it’s good for me. I like when the guys do that because I have good counters, I have power and when the guy throws a lot of crazy punches I’m always able to find space in between,” Santos said. “Official prediction – I’m gonna win by knockout in the second round.”
You can see his fight with Sodiq Yusuff on the main card of UFC Vegas 106. That portion of the card starts at 7pm EST on ESPN+.
You can also hear the entire audio of this interview on the latest edition of the Top Turtle MMA Podcast. The interview starts at 28:37.
