Glendale — Middleweight Yousri Belgaroui has sent a message to the division through four straight knockouts between the Contender Series and his UFC run, culminating with Noche UFC on Saturday.
That message is simple: “That they gotta watch out. When they’re in front of me, they know there’s a good chance I’m going to hurt them.”
Speaking with Cageside Press following his finish of Djorden Santos at the Desert Diamond Arena, Belgaroui (11-3) stated that he doesn’t chase the finish. “You never when the knockout comes. I’m not going to chase it like a crazy man, but I’m herding my opponent to a place where he’s going to leave openings. And when I see the opening, I want to get him out of there.”
As for whether there was one particular moment where he knew the fight was his, Belgaroui explained that it was “all the time. Because even when when he hit me or when he kicked and I blocked it, I felt like ‘this is my fight.’ You can’t have a perfect fight where you don’t get hit and you hit everything, but everything you do tells a story for the next thing that comes.”
As an example, checking a kick, knowing that his opponent is hurt and won’t throw another, or when Belgaroui landed kicks himself. “I try to tell a story through that, and the end of the story is him on the floor.”
Yousri Belgaroui trains with the likes of Glover Teixeira and Alex Pereira, and like Pereira made the switch to MMA from kickboxing. It wasn’t that he had to unlearn things from kickboxing that didn’t work in MMA, but rather, “I had to be reborn,” Belgaroui explained. “It’s such a different sport. I mean yes, you take some things over, but even the striking is completely different.”
Watch the full Noche UFC post-fight press conference with Yousri Belgaroui above.