"Y'all know my personality, deep down y'all know who I am--everything you see is on the surface right now, everything keeps getting more groovy the deeper you keep going down."

Lando Vannata is man of many layers.

On the surface, the UFC lightweight appears just to be a spin kicking knockout artist, but inside, the man is a personality to which there are many levels.

In the comfort of familiar surroundings at the Jackson Winkeljohn gym in Albuquerque, New Mexico, FloCombat earlier this week got the chance to speak to Vannata ahead of his next fight at UFC 209 against David Teymur. Conversation with the 'Groovy' one started off lighthearted and friendly, but when it got down to talking business, the look in man's eyes changed.

"Yeah, [it's in] little less than three weeks, I'm feeling good," Vannata said. "Teymur, unless he changes his whole style between the last 87 fights and this one, he's basic, he's predictable and I'm going to make him do what I want him to do. He gets dropped by guys that don't have power and he's chinny.

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"I don't go out there searching for knockout--I just let everything flow, but I'm confident it will come in this fight."

One of the biggest influences on Vannata's career to date has been UFC featherweight, Cub Swanson. Vannata explained how the two became close and how they still worked together despite Swanson now spending the majority of time training up his own personal gym in Palm Springs.

"It started like five years ago man," Vannata said. "He was the first person I ever MMA sparred here [JacksonWink] and he beat the s*it out of me. Over the months that I first got here he started showing more, became closer and became better friends. He really instilled the creativity in my practice and he'd be like 'come hold this pad for me man, I want to work this, check this--what do you think of this?'. It really instilled that creativity--don't just stick to the basic s*it--let's build and let's create a little bit.

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"The bond has just grown stronger over the years and we're great training partners. Whenever he is in town or whenever I'm in Palm Springs we push each other to get each other better, and afterwards we sit down just like we always have and see what else works and see what else we can create."