UFC Fighter Yair Rodriguez was recently interviewed and during he said some interesting things on how he hopes to change people’s negative opinion on the sport…
“I hope I change people’s opinion of the sport. They used to watch the UFC or MMA and used to think, ‘Those guys are animals, the worst.’ Some guy in Mexico called fighting criminal, and it’s what I have to change. I want to show them that as professional fighters, we’re here for success and we train as hard as any athlete or even harder than that.”
“I try to keep my life real. I don’t want to be up there thinking crazy stuff. I try to keep myself down here on Earth with positive thoughts and I want to keep working hard. Nothing’s happened yet. My goals are not there yet. This is just one more step, one more goal for me. Alex Caceres is my next opponent, a tough guy, and I respect him a lot, but my goals are farther than this, so I’m going to try to win this fight and then move forward.”
And later he was asked about his upcoming fight with Alex ‘Bruce Leroy’ Caceres…
“I know that I’m one of those guys and a lot of people say that I’m that guy, but I don’t know, man. I don’t know yet,” laughed the 7-1 fighter, who took home a Performance of the Night bonus for his finish of Fili back in April. “I’m just looking for that dream, that goal in my life.
“It’s like the same thing with the knockouts – you can’t force to go for the belt. You can ask for it, but if it’s there, the opportunity is going to come. You just have to keep working hard without looking at anything else and then the opportunity is going to come eventually. If you start doing the right thing, you keep winning fights, what else is going to happen? There is just one goal out there, but first I have to win my next fight and that’s against Alex Caceres.
“I feel amazing and I know it’s going to be a tough fight,” he added. “(Caceres) is a tough opponent, a good kid and I know it’s going to be a lot of fun up there because he likes to go forward and I like to go forward too, so let’s see what happens there.”