Carlos ‘Black Jag’ Ulberg returns to the UFC octagon next month for a vital clash against veteran Volkan Oezdemir; a fight that might potentially catapult the favored Recent Zealander into light heavyweight title contention.
Yet because the young Kiwi prepares for the largest fight of his skilled profession, he’s already got one eye on the person sitting atop the sunshine heavyweight division, Alex ‘Poatan’ Pereira.
Carlos Ulberg admits he’s been studying UFC champ Alex Pereira for some time
Talking to Sky Sport Recent Zealand alongside lightweight legend Dan Hooker, the ‘Black Jag’ would reveal that heading into UFC 307, he was picking Khalil Rountree to upset the applecart.
“I had my money on Rountree, I assumed Rountree would do quite well given how he’s quite explosive and will have given a distinct look to Alex Pereira, but because the rounds went on, I believe Pereira got here back and stuck to his gameplan which was to tire him out.”
Ulberg noted that whilst Pereira was ultimately in a position to find the finish within the fourth, Rountree did have his own fleeting moments of success on the feet, “but it surely was just for a great 10-15 seconds [and] it’s in those moments that you would capitalize on.”
Spoken like a real student of the sport – a student who has been reviewing the striking kind of Pereira for a while as he eyes a future showdown with the Brazilian.
“I’ve been studying Alex for some time now, he’s at the highest and he’s the prime straight away, he’s definitely someone that everybody’s keeping track of so knowing that he has a high fight IQ, it’s all the time good to sit down back and see how he operates within the octagon.
“I’m coming up and shortly I’ll get my likelihood,” teased the surging Recent Zealander, who was quick to acknowledge how Rountree’s title shot from the #8 rating also gives him hope of a surprise leapfrogging.
“Once I get through [Volkan] Oezdemir, which is a tough task obviously, it’s free reign from there and it’ll give me the chance to fight for the sunshine heavyweight title… As you’ve just seen with the number 8 who’s just fought for the sunshine heavyweight title, at any given time we could possibly be called up for that.”
Carlos Ulberg reveals broken toe six weeks before UFC return
Carlos Ulberg vs Volkan Oezdemir is scheduled for November 23 when the promotion returns to Macau, China – unfortunately, the ‘Black Jag’ also revealed that he’s just suffered a painful injury in training.
“It’s just going through the pain really of waking up,” he shared on training camp, before admitting that “I just broke my toe yesterday in sparring and didn’t realize I’d broken it until doing my sit-ups and seeing it was facing the opposite way.
“It’s just going through that pain and struggle, after which doing all of it once more the subsequent day so until then, I’m just doing what I would like to do; what’s been working in my favor prior to now, and just attempting to keep to the identical formula really.”
With that light heavyweight showdown set to go down in only six weeks’ time, there’s loads of time for the broken toe to heal; time that’ll be used to work out a gameplan that’ll see Ulberg getting his hand raised in Macau.
“I’ve still got six weeks to finalize every little thing and work out what’s going to occur for my game plan, but I type of have a feel of what’s going to occur.
“Within the last two weeks, that’s after I’ll begin to feel my feet and the gameplan will come together… I actually have full confidence in myself that I’ll go in there to placed on a show and get the win but on the subject of the gameplan, every little thing type of formulates within the last two weeks or so.”
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