Cameron Saaiman: Next fight date and opponent
Cameron Saaiman will take on unbeaten bantamweight Payton Talbott in Las Vegas on 23 March at the UFC Fight Night event.
For his next Octagon test, South African MMA star Cameron Saaiman will take on another former participant in Dana White’s Contender Series.
According to a UFC announcement, Saaiman will take on unbeaten bantamweight Payton Talbott (7-0-0) in Las Vegas on 23 March at the UFC Fight Night: Ribas vs. Namajunas event.
On Wednesday, MMA Fighting broke the story of the booking first.
After losing to an overweight Christian Rodriguez in a unanimous decision in October, Saaiman is back. After starting his fighting career with a 9-0 record, the catchweight loss was his first professional defeat.
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CAMERON SAAIMAN IS ‘THE FUTURE’
Saaiman has already been hailed as the future of the sport by none other than Dana White.
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The MSP got into the sport through a chance happening that saw his father working for Carnival City.
Saaiman senior brought his son along for some EFC ,fight nights and he caught the cage-fighting bug instantly.
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“My father actually worked for Carnival City, which hosted the EFC events — the local events here in South Africa,” Cameron Saaiman told ESPN.
“He was a project manager there and I actually just happened to be there with him at his work and that’s basically how I fell in love with the sport. I watched a few fights and then I went to my father and told him: ‘I want to do this. This is really cool.’
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“As a 12-year-old kid, you can get tired of many sports. I did skateboarding for about a week and a half before stopping that, so I really jumped around doing a lot of sports, but this one really stuck.”
THE STAMP OF APPROVAL
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Saaiman says that being rated highly by the boss serves to motivate him to do well in the UFC.
“It’s an absolute compliment and it’s an honour to be called that by the boss man himself.
“If anything, I think it added a lot of motivation. Since I started as a professional, I turned pro when I was 18 and there was a lot of criticism because of that and I had to prove myself every single time.