RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014 Vicente Luque has never been such a betting underdog in his entire UFC career like he is now ahead of UFC Rio, when he faces short-notice replacement Joel Alvarez, and he has a hard time understanding the lines.<\/p>\n
Luque, who was originally slated to meet Santiago Ponzinibbio on the Oct. 11 event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has beaten former and future champions in Rafael dos Anjos, Tyron Woodley and Bella Muhammad throughout his 16-7 run in the UFC. The recent loss to Kevin Holland dropped him to 2-4 in his past six outings, though.<\/p>\n
Alvarez, on the other hand, makes the move to welterweight after having a hard time making 155 pounds in the past. The Spanish talent won seven of nine in the UFC with a 100-percent finish rate, stopping Marc Diakiese, Elves Brenner and Drakkar Klose in most recent appearances.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say what the fans and what everybody at home expects,\u201d Luque told MMA Fighting during the UFC Rio media day. \u201cThat\u2019s not really what I think about too much. I know what I\u2019ve been doing, I know what I plan to do that night. If everybody thinks I\u2019m the underdog, I\u2019m gonna have to go out there and surprise them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fighting in Rio de Janeiro for the first time boosts his confidence and spirit, and being counted out can work as extra fuel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not trying to shut anybody up, but I\u2019m definitely there do to what I\u2019m gonna do,\u201d Luque said. \u201cAnything that you put against me is gonna be motivation, an extra fire to go out there and do what I do. Regardless, I want to win, I wanna go out there and have fun that night. I wanna go out there and do what I do. If guys are gonna think I cannot do it and they wanna put that challenge on, even better. I got more fire to go out there and do what I do as best as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alvarez\u2019s only two UFC defeats came against Arman Tsarukyan and Damir Ismagulov at lightweight, and Luque said \u201che deserves the hype he gets\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had great fights and he has finished a lot of them \u2014 if not all of them,\u201d Luque said. \u201cHe has fought really good fight. There are guys that have much less fights and have much more hype than that. I think that he backs up his hype. That\u2019s exactly one thing that excites me. I\u2019m stepping in there against a guy that\u2019s hungry, against a guy that a lot of people see as a prospect, and I can profit from that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luque competed three times in South America since joining the UFC. At UFC Montevideo, he won a \u201cFight of the Night\u201d bonus-winning split decision over Mike Perry. On Brazilian soil, Luque scored stoppages against Niko Price and Hector Urbina. He was forced to make some changes after Alvarez stepped in for Ponzinibbio, but feels ready to get the job done inside the distance.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoel is much taller opponent. Although he\u2019s a 155er, he\u2019s a very tall 170 guy,\u201d Luque said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s a striker more boxing oriented. But all these things were things I had three weeks to change to make sure I adjusted. At Kill Cliff I have so much talent to help me with that, so I had guys that could emulate that style and get me ready for this. I\u2019m confident that even with the exchange, nothing has really been a problem for me in this training camp. I\u2019m in great shape, physically, mentally, and very motivated for this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely envision myself with a finish,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019ve been working hard. My style favors a finish, being knockout or submission, so I do see it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014 Vicente Luque has never been such a betting underdog in his entire UFC career…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-206402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}