Houston — Ante Delija is a big fan of Texas barbeque. “And dessert,” he joked during Wednesday’s UFC Houston media day, admitting that “I like too much sugar. [I] eat everything.”
Delija (26-7) is looking to bounce back from a weird loss to Waldo Cortes-Acosta that he was not a fan of. The fight was initially stopped with what looked like a TKO finish for the Croatian heavyweight, but was later restarted when it was ruled Cortes-Acosta had been victim of an eye poke.
Delija was knocked out shortly after.
“I think the refs made a mistake here, and that the fight should not have continued,” he told Cageside Press on Wednesday. “I wanted to win a fair fight, and I think that fight should have been a No Contest. I’m sure I did not poke him in the eye.”
Still, the former PFL champ isn’t focused on a rematch at the moment. “I go step-by-step, I’m focused fully on [Serghei] Spivac right now, and we’ll see what the future holds.”
Delija trains with Tom Aspinall at Team Kaobon, and that’s been the case ahead of UFC Houston once again. Notably, the UFC heavyweight champ was absent this time out, after suffering an eye poke in his fight with Ciryl Gane.
“I’ve been training in Manchester at Tom’s gym for the last few months for this fight. Tom was not fighting with us, he was not training with us because his eye was still injured,” Delija noted. “He just had some kind of surgery done, and it’s going to take about three to four months to come back.”
Doesn’t sound like Aspinall will be available for the White House card in that case.
Watch the full UFC Houston media day appearance by Ante Delija above.
