MILLIONS fighter Hakeem Dawodu will be stepping into the octagon Saturday night at UFC Vegas 47. He’s facing Mike Trizano in a featherweight bout and tells UFC News, “I can picture me finally getting another knockout this fight, finishing this guy.”
Dawodu is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Movsar Evloev back in June, but Dawodu says he was injured heading into that fight and didn’t even know it until after the fight. “It was one of those fights where I uh, unfortunately I got injured before the fight, I herniated my disc in my c-7,” says Dawodu. Despite losing that fight, Dawodu says it’s an example of just how tough he is, “even though I was injured, I was still able to get through the fight, he gassed the last round, I wobbled him, I had him hurt. I felt like if I had two more rounds I would have been able to finish him and get the knockout.”
Dawodu spent a lot of time rehabbing in his native of Canada and he says the herniation went down on its own, “I’m back to feeling better than I did in the first place.” That could spell trouble for Trizano who scored a decision victory over Ludovit Klein in his last fight back in May.
“I think he’s going to have a hard time with my speed, I think he’s going to have a hard time with my power, I think he’s going to have a hard time with just my skills and the experience, you know what I mean. He’s got a decent record as well, but if you look at who has fought the more experienced guys their whole career, it has been me…I think I just have a bigger pedigree, a lot more experience, and I think that’s going to show this Saturday,” says Dawodu.
Once he gets past Trizano, Dawodu plans to keep climbing the featherweight ranks, “I want to get into the top ten and I want to start being talked about when they talk about title contenders. That’s been my goal, that’s always been my goal, and that’s still the goal.”
You can follow Dawodu on his UFC journey through the featherweight rankings by keeping an eye on the MILLIONS blog. And you can also use the Personal Video feature and ask him anything.