Augusto Sakai has his back against the wall after three straight knockout defeats in the UFC. Yet, those losses — or “learning experiences,” as he prefers to call them — made him change several things in his life ahead of Saturday night’s UFC Vegas 59 event, which sees him faces Sergey Spivak.
The Brazilian heavyweight believes that his previous 4-0 start in the UFC could help him avoid getting cut from the promotion in case of another loss, but either way, he said, “I want to win this fight so bad, and I know it’s coming.”
“Enough losses,” Sakai said on the latest episode of MMA Fighting’s Trocacao Frankca .. A fight is just that, a fight. But I am much better than before. I’ve learned a lot with the past few fights and I’m in a great moment now.”
Spivak, on the other hand, looks to keep his momentum going five months after finishing Greg Hardy and bouncing back from a loss to Tom Aspinall in 2021 — his only defeat in his past five octagon appearances.
Sakai said he wants his first knockout win since a 59-second finish over Tybura in September 2019 to “remove the jinx once for all.”
“He’s a weird guy with an odd game,” Sakai said of Spivak. “Sometimes he hugs you to take you down and sometimes he trades a little bit on the feet, like he did last time and ended up winning by knockout. We’re prepared to surprise him and kill his game. We’re ready to surprise him and kill his game.”
Sakai emigrated full-time from Japan to Florida in order to train with heavyweights such as Marcelo Golm and Marcos Rogerio de Lima. This was a difficult but essential switch.
” Moving away to live and sleep in another country is hard, but it’s something I am willing to do.” he stated. “I am confident in my abilities and know how I can fight. I’m 100-percent willing to pay the price of staying away from home in Brazil to win and get back on track.”
Sakai signed with the UFC after stopping Marcos Conrado Jr. at Dana White‘s Contender Series in 2018 and won his first four in the UFC, knocking out Chase Sherman and Marcin Tybura and winning decisions over Andrei Arlovski and Blagoy Ivanov, but then suffered TKO defeats to Alistair Overeem, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, and Tai Tuivasa.
“I don’t care too much about this pressure, I’m focused on myself and what I want,” he said. I want to win this battle so badly. Instead of worrying about the pressure, I think about my goals. What I’m capable of doing in the UFC or in combat is still within my reach.
“Unfortunately, I am coming off losses and learning experiences but have won four consecutive fights in UFC. Very few others did it in heavyweight. I’m not thinking about this pressure — ‘You have to win’ — but on my evolution and my victory.”
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