In just his fourth UFC appearance, Kevin Vallejos steps into his first UFC main event this Saturday.<\/p>\n
The exciting featherweight prospect faces Josh Emmett in the UFC Vegas 114 headliner at the Meta APEX. Following his highlight-reel victory over Giga Chikadze at UFC Vegas 112 this past December, Vallejos called for a fight against Cub Swanson \u2013 which led to a bit of backlash from the fan base considering Swanson isn\u2019t ranked, and his career is officially winding down.<\/p>\n
Vallejos was asked about the reaction from the fan base, and explained why he felt the callout was more than fair.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard stuff, but like, it wasn\u2019t a problem if you think about it,\u201d Vallejos told MMA Fighting. \u201cI mean, I know he\u2019s not in the top of the division, but we\u2019re talking about a guy that I think is being underestimated by people. We\u2019re talking about a guy that actually beat Charles Olivera, and I think that\u2026 first of all, I\u2019m not in any rush to be in the top and I wanted to fight against a guy that has experience, that has seen some things, [who] actually knows how to, to manage a fight and how to conduct himself inside the octagon.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s someone who\u2019s, again, experienced and someone that I can take very good lessons [from]t. So that\u2019s why I had that name.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Vallejos didn\u2019t get Swanson, he did get a past- interim title challenger in Emmett \u2013 who is currently on a two-fight skid, and has dropped four of his past five. In his most recent appearance, Emmett was submitted quickly by Youssef Zalal at UFC 320 this past October.<\/p>\n
When the 24-year-old Vallejos received the name, he didn\u2019t hesitate to say yes, but he also understands the potential dangers in front of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, besides being a fighter, I\u2019m a UFC fan as well,\u201d Vallejos said. \u201cSo when I got that name, Josh, I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s a tough challenge in front of me right there.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think about the guy, he is a tough fighter, somebody who\u2019s experienced, he\u2019s been around the block. Yeah, he\u2019s coming off some losses in recent fights, but if you look at who he fought, I mean, he\u2019s fought the best up there, not just those who actually became [champions and] fought for the championship, but also those are on top of the division. So I\u2019m very excited about the opportunity, very happy to have a fighter like him and ready for a challenge like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emmett believes the UFC made the matchup so they could try and enhance Vallejos\u2019 stock \u2013 especially as a Contender Series alum and contract winner. The 41-year-old called it a \u201cmust-win\u201d fight considering his recent run.<\/p>\n
Vallejos was asked how he would handle, at such a young age in the sport, potentially being the guy who ended Emmett\u2019s decade-long run with the promotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not something I\u2019d like to think about,\u201d Vallejos explained. \u201cI don\u2019t like that because, obviously, I got a career in front of me and it\u2019s my job. This is what I\u2019m here to do. I\u2019m a fighter. I\u2019m here to take on fights, and I understand that he\u2019s got a lot of time under his belt, but I have so much more in front of me. I understand that this is what we trained for. This is what we want; we want to be a fighter in the UFC. You\u2019re going to train for this, you\u2019re going to get hard challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 24 years old, right? So I have a lot more in front of me. So right now, all the pressure is on him. I\u2019m the one that\u2019s got so much more in my future.There\u2019s many years ahead of me, so I feel that the pressure is all on him at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In just his fourth UFC appearance, Kevin Vallejos steps into his first UFC main event this Saturday. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-540147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540147","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=540147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}