Richard Martins had a short run on the 33rd season of The Ultimate Fighter this year but remains confident that it\u2019s just a matter of time until he\u2019s signed to the UFC.<\/p>\n
Martins was a member of Chael Sonnen\u2019s welterweight team and ended up losing a decision to season winner Daniil Donchenko in his first match. Nine months after the show aired, Martins returns to action looking for a finish over Argemiro Delmandes at this Friday at LFA 221 in Brasilia, Brazil, to prove he\u2019s \u201cUFC material\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a good chance a spot on the Contender Series will open up after I win this fight,\u201d Martins told MMA Fighting. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for them to give out straight UFC contracts lately, but I believe that by winning this fight, I\u2019ll have their attention. I know that losing the first fight on TUF doesn\u2019t look great, but I lost to the champion \u2014 and it was a war. So I believe they\u2019ll give me another opportunity, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delmandes had a rough start in the sport with eight losses in his first 17 bouts between 2011 and 2020, but has since won nine of 10 \u2014 all in the first round. Martins scored three of his four LFA wins by way of stoppage and is inspired by the knockout power of a LFA veteran to improve to 10-1 in the sport: UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been following [Pereira] since GLORY, back when he wasn\u2019t even fighting MMA yet,\u201d Martins said. \u201cI\u2019ve admired him for quite a while. Our styles are different, but I really like his sense of lethality. The way he lands that short left hook, those powerful leg kicks, that\u2019s inspiring to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since TUF matches are considered exhibition bouts and therefore excluded from professional records, Martins technically remains on an eight-fight winning streak with seven finishes. Martins said his grappling is \u201cway better\u201d now than when he last entered the LFA cage a year ago, but striking remains his main weapon.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really cool experience meeting those guys, Chael [Sonnen] and Daniel Cormier,\u201d Martins said. \u201cI learned some new things. I lost my first fight, unfortunately, but I got matched up with that Ukrainian guy who\u2019s really tough. Nobody wants to lose, but it\u2019s part of a fighter\u2019s career. Still, it was a unique experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom what I\u2019ve studied about [Delmandes] he doesn\u2019t have grappling, so I believe he\u2019s always going to move forward and throw more strikes,\u201d he continued. \u201cHe also kicks the legs a lot, so I think this fight is perfect for me because I know he won\u2019t try to take me down, we\u2019re going to trade shots.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Martins had a short run on the 33rd season of The Ultimate Fighter this year but remains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-268664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}