Las Vegas – In his first main event assignment, bantamweight Mario Bautista stole the show at UFC Vegas 113, earning a second-round submission of Vinicius Oliveira in a near-flawless performance.
“It’s surreal, you know? First main event, five rounder against a tough opponent,” Bautista (17-3) told Cageside Press and other media after the fight, speaking backstage at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday. “When you watch his highlights all week, you don’t want to come out on that side. When I come out on top, it just feels great.”
Before the fight, a big story was the 30 pounds Oliveira brought to Fight Week. In response, Bautista commented, “I think that whole thing about him being 165 pounds or whatever, to me, it makes you slow. It makes you slow.”
If Oliveira had any size or strength advantage, it didn’t show. And Bautista’s Fight IQ served him well. “I could see everything, I had great eyes there. All the experience I have. I saw everything,” he stated.
At the weigh-in, Oliveira got right in Bautista’s face and told him, “Smile. Smile as long as you can.” In response, Bautista joked that “it looks like you want to kiss me.”
“I think I broke his character, he started laughing,” suggested Bautista, who added that the nonsense started again just before the fight, during the fighters’ introductions. “Do you want to kiss me now?” Oliveira asked him. “I just gave him a few kisses before I beat him up. It’s all part of the show.”
A native of Nevada, Bautista now calls Arizona home and trains at The MMA Lab in Scottsdale. Ideally, he would like to return to action this summer, and a UFC card in Phoenix would be ideal.
“That would be great. That’s even better than…” [Vegas]. It would go from Abu Dhabi, Vegas, to Phoenix. That would be nice.”
Bautista called out Cory Sandhagen after his fight and believes their rematch would go very differently. In his promotional debut, Bautista was submitted by Sandhagen, who flirted with the bantamweight title and challenged Merab Dvalisvili for the belt last year.
Another fighter called out Mario Bautista after his victory on Saturday: Song Yadong, who just lost to ex-champ Sean O’Malley.
“Song Yadong. No, I want to fight Sandhagen. Song Yadong can still recover from that loss,” Bautista responded.
Watch the full UFC Vegas 113 post-fight press conference with Mario Bautista above.
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