Las Vegas — At UFC 324, rising middleweight Ateba Gautier earned his fourth win in four fights inside the octagon, tough he threw many for a loop by going the distance in the fight.
Gautier (10-1) had gone the distance just once before, on the wrong side of a split decision early in his career. The outcome against Andrey Pulayev on Saturday was quite different, with all three judges scoring the preliminary card bout for Cameroon’s Gautier.
“I feel good. I really feel good,” he told media outlets including Cageside Press following the bout. “I feel it’s a good fight, good experience. I usually go for one round when I fight. I don’t train for one round, but it [the finish] always happens in the first round.”
“Now I’m happy. I proved to people— people say all the time that I don’t have the gas tank to go for 15 minutes. So now I proved that I have to gas tank to go for 15 minutes.”
In other words, Gautier seems to feel he’s sent a message. “I’m happy to show them— shut the f*ck up, bro. I can go for 15 minutes.”
As for being damaged in the fight, Ateba Gautier wasn’t sweating it. “Blood is blood. Just red water, that’s it.”
Getting a fight in early in 2026, Gautier could be looking at a busy year. He admitted that he’d enjoy fighting in Paris, where many from Cameroon reside.
“Yes, obviously I want to fight on UFC Paris one day. There’s many people there from Cameroon. It would be also good to fight in front of people from my country. It would be cool.”
Asked for a callout, meanwhile, Gautier had a big one. A former title challenger known as “The Italian Dream.”
“I’ve got a name, I’ve got a name. I want to fight Marvin Vettori. I want to fight him. He’s also a tough guy, so let’s go for a fight,” exclaimed Gautier, who believes his performance on Saturday shows he can hang with the likes of the Italian. “It would be fun, it would be fun to have this test of fighting a tough guy. Show him I’m here, I’m here, it’s my time, no matter what. I just proved to you, he’s always going three rounds now, he’s tough, hard to get knocked out. Now I showed them I can go for three rounds as well, so let’s go now.”
Watch the full UFC 324 post-fight press conference with Ateba Gautier above.
