While Gokhan Saki enjoyed a pretty good start to his UFC career with a stunning knockout of Henrique da Silva, many fans noticed how easily he seemed to tire
Saki claimed that his conditioning will take some time to perfect, but there is a reason for that:
“My last fight with Glory was in 2014 with Tyrone Spong and then after that, one year later I had another fight, so in the last three and a half years I only fought one time,” Saki told Ariel Helwani on the latest episode of The MMA Hour.
“After my last fight – it was a kickboxing fight – I was always ready for three minutes. Now, it was five minutes. Like I said, I only started training this year in MMA conditioning and you cannot build it up in a couple of months.
“After every fight you need to keep training to build up your muscle conditioning and your strength conditioning. If I had a kickboxing fight, maybe I would be tired because I didn’t train for this.”
Saki said that ring rust was the major factor for him tiring against da Silva:
“How I see the contest, for the first three minutes I was good, and then after three and four minutes I started to get a little bit tired but also the ring rust was coming,” he explained.
“The first time I hit him with a knockdown, he went down and when he stood up I only give power punches. Normally, in kickboxing when I was training all the time, I am thinking all the time in the fight, throwing combinations. This time I was only giving power shots.
“Now I’ve started training again already because this was my first time in an ultimate fight. It was only 50 percent. This is just the beginning. I’m really happy to be back on this big stage. I’m ready to show many, many more things.”
The Turk also recognized that he should have looked to employ more combinations against his opponent on the night:
“After the first time he went down, I was throwing a lot of left hooks and right hooks. He knows what was coming. If you keep (throwing combinations) in a fight, that’s the most difficult thing for opponents. That’s where KOs are coming from,” Saki said.
“The power was there 100 percent, but there is nothing like combinations when you are trying to knock your opponent out.”
