Rozenstruik, Sakai looking to rebuild momentum
Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Augusto Sakai will both be looking to rebuild momentum when they meet in the heavyweight main event of a UFC Fight Night set for the APEX Facility in Las Vegas on the morning of Sunday.
Rozenstruik (11-2) comes into the fight on the back of a unanimous decision loss to Ciryl Gane in February – a second defeat from his last three trips to the Octagon. Previously considered a possible title contender, the 33-year-old Surinamese needs a return to form to get back into that bracket.
‘Bigi Boy’ believes that a win over Sakai this weekend will put him back in the conversation as a possible opponent for current heavyweight king Francis Ngannou.
“Of course, I would love to fight for the title but in the meantime, I’m making myself ready. Stipe [Miocic] is the No 1 contender right now,” said Rozenstruik.
He added: “Augusto is also a striker. He’s a big boy, so I’ve got to be there moving a lot, don’t stand there. I’ve been working a lot with my boxing coach too. So, I think in this fight I have to be first, and that’s one of my strongest position in fights, so I think I’m going to work on that.
“A finish always feels good. You’re working so hard to do things and finish a fight. That gives you the confidence of ‘Okay, I’m working on this, let me keep working on this, but I can add this to it.’ And the most important thing to me is winning, it doesn’t matter how.”
Sakai (15-2-1) also comes into the match on the back of a loss, having been on the end of a TKO from Alistair Overeem in September last year. It was a first defeat in more than three years for the 30-year-old Brazilian, who is happy to be booked in a headline fight after his scheduled bout against Shamil Abdurakhimov in May was scrapped due to an injury to the latter.
“For sure, it was a great opponent change. Because Jairzinho is better ranked,” explained Sakai. “It’s a main event now, I’m headlining another card, so it was very good.
“We were ready to fight on 1 May, but we’ve just won another month to prepare and make some final adjustments. The difference between Jairzinho and the Russian is that Shamil likes to go for the takedowns, while Jairzinho has a different game.
“We had to make a small change in our gameplan, but we already had a great camp for Shamil, so we just need to keep that going. We need to focus on those little changes and develop the right gameplan to win. I’m getting ready to put on a great fight.”