Chase Sherman: I Don't Give A Sh*t How I Beat Augusto Sakai At UFC FN 137
Chase Sherman: I Don't Give A Sh*t How I Beat Augusto Sakai At UFC FN 137
UFC heavyweight Chase Sherman explains his willingness to accept a short-notice bout vs. Augusto Sakai at UFC Fight Night 137 in Sao Paulo.
There’s something in the water in Mississippi—and it certainly isn’t fear. Just two weeks after his teammate Brandon Davis took a short-notice fight against Zabit Magomedsharipov at UFC 228, Chase Sherman is doing the same at Saturday's UFC Fight Night 137 in São Paulo.
Placed in a similar situation to Davis, Sherman will be the first to tell you his back is against the wall. In his usual calm, cool, and collected manner, the 28-year-old heavyweight isn’t fazed by the short-notice nature of the fight.
“You’re not going to have an ideal situation all the time, and you’re not going to get the opponent you want every time,” Sherman said in an interview with FloCombat. “You’re not going to always get a full camp all the time. So, you just have to take what you can get. My back's against the wall, so I can’t be choosy here.”
Taking it a step further, Sherman said he didn’t just accept the offer to fight in Brazil, he jumped at it. The 6’4”, 257-pounder has been waiting for months to get his next opponent.
“I’ve been begging for a fight, and when they call, you can’t just turn down a fight,” Sherman said. “I’d obviously like a full camp, but I’ve got to pay my bills. I’ve got to feed my family, so it’s time to get back into the cage.”
In his last outing, Sherman dropped a unanimous decision to rising heavyweight star Justin Willis.
The difference between a win and a loss? Sherman believes it falls with a game-planning change-up that occurred in the second round.
“It was a close fight with only one real defining moment,” Sherman said. “He definitively won the first round and I definitively won the last round. It all came down to the second round when I started changing my strategy a little bit.
“It was going well and I threw a head kick, and he ate it and got the trip. Then he just laid in my guard for the remainder of the round. Maybe if that kick wouldn’t have happened it would have been a different outcome. That’s the fight game and kind of how it goes.”
Standing across the cage from Sherman will be UFC newcomer Augusto Sakai. Sakai competed earlier this summer for the Brazilian installment of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series, finishing his opponent Marcos Conrado Jr. by second-round TKO.
“The Vanilla Gorilla” knows Sakai won’t be an easy task to conquer. He doesn’t care how or when he’ll get it done, or even if it’s pretty or not.
All Sherman cares about is getting back in the win column.
“From what I saw on film, I should be able to definitively beat this guy,” Sheman said. “I just want to win, man, that’s all I care about. I don’t give a sh*t how it happens.”