Fares Ziam was honest in his assessment of where he stands within the UFC lightweight division.
Ziam (17-4 MMA, 7-2 UFC) notched his fifth-straight win lower than two weeks ago when he defeated Mike Davis by unanimous decision at UFC Fight Night 250 in Riyadh.
The 27-year-old has shown vast improvements in his all-around game during his winning streak, but still desires to tweak some things before taking up the upper echelon of the division.
“For me, I want possibly yet one more fight before I’m going top 15 because I did some mistakes within the Mike Davis fight,” Ziam told MMA Junkie. “I need to be ready for the highest 15 because I do know once you enter in the highest 15, it’s to remain.
“Persons are high level, so we want to remain in the highest 15 to go to the highest 10 after the highest five, then to take the belt. Perhaps I want yet one more fight, but when the UFC gives me a top-15 guy, I’m able to fight Grant Dawson or Jalin Turner.”
Upon entering the UFC as a 22-year-old, Ziam’s striking background encouraged many to implement a heavy grappling approach on him, which resulted in him splitting his first 4 UFC appearances. His quick submission loss to Terrence McKinney in February 2022 was an enormous wakeup call, and Ziam was capable of turn things around to place together the present third-longest lively winning streak at lightweight.
Nevertheless, despite his recent success, Ziam’s coach identified similar tendencies that he desires to see fixed.
“My coach called me this morning and said, ‘Did you watch your fight?’ And I said, ‘Yes, one or two times,’” Ziam recounted. “He told me within the last three fights, my opponent took my back, took the mount, and this is just not good. In the highest 15, in case your opponent takes your back or gets mount, it’s going to be hard to flee. So he told me we want to work on that.”
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