Exclusive | Try to Be Like an Animal and Fight as Aggressively as I Can: UFC’s Cory Sandhagen

UFC bantamweight division fighter Cory Sandhagen will take on Song Yadong in the main event of UFC Fight Night on September 18th in Las Vegas.

Cory Sandhagen, who is ranked four, was surprised to be taking on tenth-ranked Song Yadong as he expected to face some of the higher-ranking fighters for his return to the UFC following a one-year hiatus.

Ahead of the clash, Cory Sandhagen spoke exclusively to News18.com, here are the excerpts –

What Inspired you to become an MMA fighter?

I don’t think I have too much inspiration, I just liked watching fights when I was younger. I don’t really have a super awesome story to share really about the reason that I started. I was kind of just drawn to the sport after watching it on TV late at night when it was on the station that I grew up watching, in my parent’s house, and, yeah, I really don’t have an inspiring story other than that. I just signed up at a really good gym and was kind of good at it right off the bat and then my hobby just turned into a passion and then my passion turned into a career and then I kind of got lucky to find it.

Which MMA stars did you look up to in your early days?

I used to watch, what was called the WEC. It was another organization that wasn’t the UFC. They played like years and years ago but they had like some of my favorite fighters and just because of the station that my parents got, we didn’t get a lot of the UFC fights but we got all the WEC ones. So I would watch guys like Donald Cerrone, Urijah Faber, Jose Aldo, Dominick Cruz, and Chad Mendes. Like I really liked watching a lot of those guys when I was younger, but, as I said, they were all WEC, guys. They weren’t even in the UFC yet, so that was like, long long ago.

You are one of the most technically gifted strikers in the UFC, how much does your unique style matter to you?

So my style is my art, man like I’m kind of one of the Artsier guys in the sport. I think I view fighting and I view my style as my sculpture it’s kind of like my life’s work and I’m always trying to sculpt it and perfect it, chisel away at it and make it fine-tuned and make it as beautiful as I feel like I can make it but also make it like an expression of my own self. So A lot of what you’re seeing is, like things that I’ve seen other guys do that I just think are really beautiful movements or really beautiful techniques, or really beautiful ways of thinking that I just tried to adopt and put into one own Big Style.

You seem to have a bit of everything in your arsenal, punches, fast, powerful kicks and you have even won a few fights by submission, is there any technique/ or aspect you would like to improve more in?

Yeah, I think for a long time I was using, you know, everyone kind of uses their things in order to compensate for other things. That’s why I think, styles get different. But for a long time, I think I was using a lot of movement to compensate for other weaknesses, and I think that I’ve got a lot better in those areas which have kind of just trickled down and made my actual movements a lot more precise and a lot more efficient. I haven’t fought in about a year now and I’ve spent that year really trying to hammer down and work really hard to make sure that I’m strong in those weaker areas and becoming a more well-rounded fighter. Each thing that I fix kind of seems to fix one other thing and then maybe messes up another thing and then I have to fix a different thing. So it’s just like the constant, like I said, sculpting of this art and that’s what I’ve spent a lot of my last year doing, is just tightening up the areas that I’m weak at and then hopefully I can fight for a title sometime next year and be a champ that I’m proud of.

So being in the bantamweight division, how do you manage to maintain that weight, year in year out?

It’s just discipline. You know, It’s all about how hard you want to work at something and hard work isn’t always just physical, exerting yourself, hard work is like taking notes, watching tapes eating well, and sleeping well. Making sure that, you’re taking care of your spirit and your mind and making sure that those things are doing well so that you can give 100% to your actual training. So my eating regimen and stuff are just, I just stay disciplined and I just do it. Like no one loses weight just by doing nothing. You have to actually diet. You have to actually work at these things and I’ve been doing it for so long now where I know my body really well, I know when it needs fuel. I know when I’m being just hungry and just want to eat something. I just am like a really disciplined and hardworking guy and that’s the reason that I’m able to make the weight that I can make.

The fight against TJ Dillashaw, was a split decision, with him being more wrestling-oriented, do you feel the fight was won or lost in the clinches and the takedowns?

Maybe, not in the takedowns. Only two takedowns that TJ got were like off of my techniques. Like I threw, a jumping knee and he ate it. And then Like landed on top for like a short amount of time and then I threw a spinning back kick that he closed the distance on and then I fell over for again, a short amount of time. I would say that fight, got won and lost in the control positions against the cage. And the control positions are just something that I should have been a little bit more urgent about, but it’s a little bit hard sometimes for me to understand what weighs higher than other things because I know as far as damage goes, I was doing a lot more damage on TJ than him having me in a body lock. So it was just a learning experience that, you know, is an unfortunate thing that I had to learn in such a big fight, but I’ve become a lot better fighter from it, but I think it was definitely won and lost just in those like an extra couple of seconds that TJ had a body-lock in.

You are ranked 4th in the bantamweight division and are set to face Song Yadong, ranking 10th, did you see this fight coming, or was it a bit unexpected for you?

It was a bit unexpected. I thought I was either going to fight Rob (Font), Marlon “Chito” Vera, (Dominick) Cruz, Or (Jose) Aldo. Those were the names that I thought that I was going to get, and then they all ended up fighting each other and I was kind of on Instagram, just watching all of the matchups, get announced, not knowing where I was going to land in that. And then shortly after that, I got a call just from my agent saying that they wanted me and Song  (Yadong) as the main event in September. And I was okay with it, I think Song’s a very good fighter and I think he’s a dangerous guy. He’s going to be a really great name, one day, and I think that I’ll be happy that I fought him, in the future because I do think he’ll be a big name one day.

With Yadong also being a striker, don’t think we’ll see too much of you guys on the ground?

I’m not really sure. I know that striking is definitely my best suit. I think I’m a better striker than Song and I think that’s Song’s, strongest area too, we’ll probably see who’s just going to be the better striker.

Does being aggressive before a fight help you more or does being calm and at peace before a fight? How do you prepare?

Now, I’m already a really calm enough guy as it is in life, being calm, I don’t think is the clearest path to success in a fist fight. I think I try to get really aggressive you know like when I think about Evolution and biology and stuff, we never fought unless we were in an aggressive nature or in a competitive nature or trying to protect something or whatever. So I kind of try to tap into that a little bit more. I mean, Animals fight because they’re being competitive or they’re being aggressive with each other and, they definitely don’t just fight calmly, just for fun. So I try to be like an animal and I try to fight as aggressively as I can and get as intense as I can before a fight.

What does it feel like getting a knockout victory over a decision win, do knockouts feel better?

I think Knockouts are only a little bit more exciting because usually after I fight a full fight, I’m extremely exhausted and I don’t have the energy to celebrate as much. Whereas knockout fights, obviously, happen a lot sooner than the entire allotted time. So I just have a lot more energy when I get a knockout. But both ways, a win’s a win to me, if it happens by submission, knockout whatever a win’s a win to me, but, Knockouts, I think, feel a lot better because, you know, they happen when you still have a lot of energy left in you, so you get to celebrate a little bit harder.

Will the fans ever get to see a Sterling vs Sandhagen rematch? Potentially for the title?

I really, really hope that they do one day. There are a lot of things that happen in trying to get a title shot that I don’t have a ton of control over, but I do think that with my new skill sets and just my work ethic in general. I’ll definitely be fighting for a title sometime next year and I would love it if it was against Sterling because that was the one fight that I feel like I just didn’t show up for. And, I just want to show people that I’m like, Infinitely better than that fight showed I was.

What do you see yourself doing if not for UFC?

I think I would be a coach. Yeah, I coach a lot of the kids back home and then I also coached a lot of the amateur Fighters back home too. So that’s what I enjoy doing, coaching fighters and kind of leading them through this journey, which I know has a ton of ups and downs. I like being there for the people that I coach.

Watch the LIVE coverage of UFC Fight Night – Sandhagen vs Yadong on SONY TEN 2, SONY TEN 3 (Hindi) & SONY TEN 4 (Tamil & Telugu) channels on 18th September 2022 from 7:30 am IST

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