Heavyweight fan favorite Tai Tuivasa attempts to snap an uncomfortable six-fight losing streak when he enters the octagon Saturday to face late-notice replacement Louie Sutherland at UFC Perth, and \u201cBam Bam\u201d knows his job could be at risk.<\/p>\n
Back to action less than four months after losing a decision to Tallison Teixeira in Sydney and winless since February 2022, Tuivasa believes his popularity is the reason why he keeps getting opportunities in the UFC despite being on the longest losing skid by a heavyweight in the promotion\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy ass is on the line,\u201d Tuivasa said at UFC Perth media day. \u201cLike, it\u2019s probably been on the line a lot of the time [laughs], but I f*cking put asses in the seat, so it is what it is. I feel good and I\u2019m going to go out there and do what Bam Bam does, in Bam Bam style. Not f*cking lose, d*ckheads [laughs].\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuivasa said \u201cit gets sh*ttier when you lose,\u201d but he has taken \u201ca lot of positives away\u201d from his last fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m competing at the top level, but it\u2019s still a sh*t feeling,\u201d Tuivasa said. \u201cI\u2019ve put the work in, so I better go out there and do my thing. \u2026 I got to go out there and put it all together. My team is good, my camp has been awesome, it\u2019s f*cking on me now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t get the result I wanted the last fight but we did take a lot away,\u201d he added. \u201cWe took a lot of good away from it. I\u2019ve been trying not to get tapped out by these f*cking jiu-jitsuers but it is what it is. And I felt like I didn\u2019t I did well not to get tapped out the last fight. F*ck, he had some long arms. I could feel him going for it but, again, it is what it is. I don\u2019t want to really keep dwelling on the past fights, but I f*cking feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuivasa was originally slated to face off with Sean Sharaf, who was forced off the card due to an injury. Asked whether or not he was worried the promotion wouldn\u2019t be able to find a replacement in time to stay on the Perth card, he answered in the most Tuivasa way possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m on a six-fight losing streak. F*cking shouldn\u2019t be that hard to get me a fight,\u201d Tuivasa said with a laugh. \u201cGet someone from the pub or something, please. F*cking man needs something.\u201d<\/p>\n
The heavyweight veteran now holds a record of 14-9 after losing six straight in the UFC against Ciryl Gane, Sergei Pavlovich, Alexander Volkov, Marcin Tybura, Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Teixeira, and blamed him himself for treating every matchup as if his opponent would just stand and trade punches.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy arms died, which was a weird feeling for me because I need them to punch,\u201d Tuivasa said of the Teixeira fight. \u201cLook, I kind of went in thinking this guy\u2019s gonna have a swat, like I always do. I always think like this for all the fighters. I always think, \u2018Oh, yeah, they\u2019re come and have a bang.\u2019 That\u2019s f*cking boxing. This is MMA. And then I end up on my back. I was expecting a bang on with him, but it ended on the ground. And then we just went to our game plan on the ground, which was \u2018f*cking don\u2019t get tapped out.\u2019 And I did it. I listened to my coaches. Yeah, f*ck. This is sh*t sport sometimes, Highest of the highs, lowest of the lows, but it is what it is. I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heavyweight fan favorite Tai Tuivasa attempts to snap an uncomfortable six-fight losing streak when he enters the octagon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641432,"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-641431","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\/641431","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=641431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}