After competing for the UFC flyweight championship in 2024, coming up short as many have against Alexandre Pantoja, Australia’s Steve Erceg hit a bit of a slump.
Three straight losses (including the one to Pantoja) had him in a rough spot, but more recently, “Astro Boy” has bouced back, earning decision victories over Ode’ Osbourne and Tim Elliott.
This Saturday at UFC Abu Dhabi, Erceg gets Ramazan Temirov, an unranked Uzbek who is 2-0 in the UFC thus far. The pair serve as the night’s co-main event, which has Erceg excited.
“I’m always excited to be put higher and higher on the card. I want to be exciting enough and compelling enough that I’m the main event consistently,” Erceg explained during this week’s UFC Abu Dhabi media day. “So I’m going to keep working towards that.”
As far as what fans can expect from the fight, Erceg, who had a 12-1 run to start his career that took him to a UFC title fight, noted that “I think I’m very technical. I’m going to use all my skills and I’m going to be looking for the finish. So it’s going to be exciting. He’s going to try to take my head off, and I’m going to try to take his off. Hopefully people enjoy.”
Temirov, he added, “hits very hard, he strikes wild, but he covers distance really well. If you do force him backwards, he has deceptively good footwork and timing. It’s going to be a puzzle, but I think that I have all the skills to navigate the danger and take him out.”
The question becomes what a win over Temirov really does for Steve Erceg, should the result go his way at UFC Abu Dhabi. Temirov is not ranked, Erceg sits at #10 or #13, depending on whether you favor the UFC’s AI-generated META rankings, or the human voted ones. Either way, Erceg is fighting down on Saturday.
“It’s just another step forward towards my ultimate goal, becoming a world champion,” Erceg said on what the fight might mean. “I guess beyond that, validating everything I’ve been doing in training.”
Watch the full UFC Abu Dhabi media day appearance by Steve Erceg above.
