The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

UFC Sydney: Perosh's chance to be third time lucky

Roar Guru
18th January, 2012
Advertisement
Roar Guru
18th January, 2012
0

Australian light heavyweight UFC fighter and BJJ specialist Anthony Perosh is accustomed to fighting at this time of the year, with appearances in both previous UFC Australia cards – UFC 110 and UFC 127.

His UFC 110 appearance was taken on two days notice, in a higher weight class and against heavyweight Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipović (27-10-2-1 NC).

What Perosh did in that cage, by trading with “Cro Cop” until the doctor called for a stoppage (and loss of the fight), was gain the respect of a country, the UFC and an MMA legend.

Two years on and Perosh is training towards his bout with UFC newcomer Nick Penner (11-1), on the UFC on FX2 card in Sydney. Looking for his third win in the UFC, Perosh was happy to chat with The Roar at the UFC open workouts about his upcoming fight, training in Australia and whether age is impacting his fight career.

His next fight is against Nick Penner. When asked as to whether he will provide Penner with a warm welcome to the UFC, Perosh replied that Penner may react within the cage one of two ways – be overcome with debut jitters or have nothing to lose and go for broke.

Either situation would work well into Perosh’s game plan, we have become accustomed to seeing him take control of the fight and maximise on his competitor’s mistakes, giving him two wins via rear naked choke submission. But don’t expect Perosh to be taking this fight lightly, he has had a strong training camp and looked great running through drills at the workouts.

With two UFC wins via submission it is easy to quickly overlook one fighter’s stand up game, and this has been repeatedly been discussed about Perosh by MMA fans around the world. While he is happy to be underrated his goal is to make competitors worry as much about his stand ups as his takedowns.
Age and fighting

While the sport of MMA (and the UFC) involves fighters of all ages, it is commonly expected that a fighter starts depreciate with age, it’s the nature of the business with camps that last for months, rigid weight cuts and then the injuries from the fight itself. Perosh is 39 years young and isn’t going anywhere yet.

Advertisement

The question was brought up about age and Perosh confidently mentioned that there would be three reasons why he would quit the sport (not restricted to age either):

1. The body cannot keep up.
2. More losses than wins.
3. It becomes a chore and the fire is gone.

Perosh hasn’t put an age limit as to when he stops fighting and laughed when suggested that he could rival Randy Couture for the eldest retiree in the UFC, he still has a long way to go!

Perosh is one of the first generation of the Australian onslaught within the UFC, first appearing back in July 2008 at UFC 61 against Jeff Monson (43-13) which unfortunately resulted in a loss to the Aussie.

He is one of many who spent a few years based overseas, in this case Dallas, Texas perfecting his BJJ under Carlos Muchado and has previously trained with Jacksons MMA and other Vegas-based gyms.

Upon this fight however Perosh decided to stay at home, bringing in his coaches and sparring partners to his Sydney-based gym. Perosh mentions that we do have some of the best fighters from the different fighting strands and his goal is to have a gym and a team that will be a destination for fighters from Australia and overseas to come and train or base their camps here.

The UFC on FX2 fight between Perosh and Penner will definitely be loud thanks to the hometown crowd.

Advertisement
close