Luque faces Price this Saturday (Photo: Reproduction/Facebook/UFC)
Initially off the card UFC Sao Paulo, which will take place this Saturday (28), the welterweight Vincent Luque saw the opportunity fall into his lap with just 22 days notice, due to an injury to compatriot Luan Chagas, who was removed from the fight against Niko Price. Despite the little preparation time, the 'Silent Assassin' didn't think twice about accepting the Ultimate invitation. According to him, the intense pace of training makes him ready to accept a confrontation even without a full training camp.
See too
“Nowadays I'm doing this (accepting a fight at short notice) because I always keep myself at a very good pace in training. (…) I try to always keep myself well trained, practically as if I were always in training camp, not with such a high intensity that I don't get injured, but with an intensity that in two or three weeks I can take on a fight, including the weight which I try to keep in a range that won’t be too exhausting to lose.” declared the fighter in an exclusive interview with SUPER FIGHTS.
When asked about his opponent's game, Luque went against the grain of most current fighters and preferred to extol the qualities of his opponent, who is undefeated in 11 professional MMA fights. For the Brazilian, the secret is not to let Price feel comfortable inside the octagon.
“Price is undefeated, that already shows that he is a quality guy. I see him as an aggressive guy, who comes forward, who always tries to finish his fights. And he is complete, he fights both standing up and on the ground, he is always prepared. And my style is no different from that, so the main strategy is to impose my game, put pressure on him and make him uncomfortable”, said Vicente, who concluded by revealing that he intends to keep the fight with striking.
“Initially it's always standing up (my first option), because I come from striking and the fight always starts standing up, but as the fight goes on we'll see what happens. I always say that the ground is something I will never exclude from my game, I have good submissions, so I'm always training. Let’s say it’s plan B, if it doesn’t work out here, or I think it will be easier for me to take it to the ground… what I want is to always finish the fight.”
In his last performance, in March this year, Luque had a sequence of four victories interrupted by Leon edwards, who beat him with a unanimous decision from the judges. The recent setback temporarily removed him from the top 15 welterweights, but he is already targeting two names that could put him back in the spotlight in the under-77kg category.
Name, exactly, I'm still deciding if I'm going to challenge someone on Saturday, but I want someone from the top 15. If they don't come, I won't refuse the fight, I'll face whoever they offer, but I want the best strikers, I want to show that I'm the best exchanger in its category. Two guys I've always wanted to fight: one is (Donald) Cerrone, I almost had the opportunity to fight him in New York, he's a guy I would really like to face, and the other is Darren till, who showed his quality in his last fight against Cerrone. He’s a guy who I admire for his stand-up fighting, I feel challenged, I’d like to face him for the challenge,” he concluded.
Comments