Light heavyweight prospect Artem Vakhitov (2-1 MMA) is one win away from realizing his dream of turning into a UFC fighter. Vakhitov faces Islem Masraf Tuesday evening on DWCS Week 8 in the principal occasion reverse Islem Masraf (3-0 MMA) at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas.
If he had been to win by end and in devastating trend, Vakhitov, 33, desires one other crack at UFC mild heavyweight champion Alex Pereira in some unspecified time in the future throughout his Octagon stint. The former GLORY kickboxer competed in opposition to Pereira in back-to-back fights, splitting each. The victory in opposition to Pereira was proper earlier than the Brazilian made his UFC transition.
Pereira doubts Vakhitov can recreate the identical storyline as he did with Adesanya.
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“Guys that beat me in a fight long ago, they think that they can just come here… but they are not me,” Pereira stated at the UFC 307 media day.
Vakhitov stated if Pereira is not cautious along with his potential plans to transfer to middleweight, he desires to meet in a trilogy combat. He described Pereira as “genuinely worried” about his profession trajectory if issues do not pan out accurately.
“Recently he was talking about returning to middleweight and I joked to a journalist that I didn't want him to run away to another weight class before I can get to him for our trilogy fight,” Vakhitov stated.
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Vakhitov was crucial of Pereira's feedback, given his meteoric rise to the prime of MMA to date.
“Alex has a high opinion of himself and rightly so – he has achieved incredible things. But so have I – for many years I was the undisputed world champion in my weight class and I've previously beaten Alex, so it's strange to me to hear him speaking so dismissively about me.”
All in all, Vakhitov stated he's excited to doubtlessly compete at the highest degree of the sport, with the objective of assembly Pereira. He is choosing the Brazilian to end Khalil Rountree, however didn't put it previous Rountree to pull off the upset.
“Next week, on Tuesday, I'll fight on Dana White's Contender Series,” Vakhitov stated.”That's where all my focus is right now. I have to win that fight in order to enter the UFC light heavyweight division. So we will find out on Tuesday night whether Alex and I are set to be colleagues once again. I hope so, because we have a score to settle.”
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