Las Vegas — In his first main event assignment, bantamweight Mario Bautista stole the show at UFC Vegas 113, earning a second round submission of Vinicius Oliveira in a near-flawless performance.
“It’s surreal, you know? First main event, five rounder against a tough opponent,” Bautista (17-3) told Cageside Press and other media outlets following the bout, speaking backstage at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday. “Just watching his highlight reel all week, you don’t want to come out on that side. For me to come out on top, it just feels amazing.”
Ahead of the fight, one key narrative was the 30 pounds Oliveira carried into Fight Week. In response, Bautista noted that “I think that whole thing about him being 165 pounds or whatever, to me, you’re slow. It makes you slow.”
If Oliveira had any size or power advantage, it didn’t show. And Bautista’s Fight IQ served him well. “I could see everything, I had great eyes in there. All the experience I have. I’ve seen everything,” he stated.
At weigh-ins, Oliveira got right in Bautista’s face, telling him to “Smile. Smile while you can.” In response, Bautista joked that “it seems like you want to kiss me.”
“I think I broke his character, he started laughing,” suggested Bautista, who added that the trash talk picked up again just prior to the bout, during the fighter introductions. “You want to kiss me now?'” Oliveira asked him. “I just blew him a couple of kisses before I beat him up. It’s all part of the show.”
Born in Nevada, Bautista now calls Arizona home, training with The MMA Lab in Scottsdale. Ideally, he’d like to get back in action over the summer, and a UFC card in Phoenix would be ideal.
“That’d be awesome. That’s be even better than [Vegas]. It’d go from Abu Dhabi, Vegas, to Phoenix. That’d be nice.”
Bautista called out Cory Sandhagen after his fight, and believes their rematch would go much differently. In his promotional debut, Bautista found himself submitted by Sandhagen, who has flirted with the bantamweight title and challenged Merab Dvalisvili for the belt last year.
A different fighter called out Mario Bautista after his win on Saturday: Song Yadong, who just lost to ex-champ Sean O’Malley.
“Song Yadong. Nah, I want to fight Sandhagen. Song Yadong can just sit on that loss a little bit,” responded Bautista.
Watch the full UFC Vegas 113 post-fight press conference with Mario Bautista above.
