Kickboxing Champion Wants to Fight Nate Diaz in UFC Debut | Joe Rogan

Now at 26, how much time do you think you need between now and when you have your first MMA fight? You know, what is my dream now? Now I beat everybody. So I'm getting bored in kickboxing. I'm still defending my title because I like it. Because of the cash price also. And my dream is I still in contract for one year and a half. A little bit more than one year. My dream is to prepare myself for MMA during one year. So I still got time. And after the end of the contract, directly go to UFC. And take the champ for a direct title shot or a top 5 ranked guy. I really would like to fight Nate Diaz and Tony Perez from my first fight MMA. Only to shock the world. To show everybody that a guy who comes from kickboxing, directly his first fight, he's a top guy in MMA and he fucked him up. So that's what I want to do. And I really really believe in me and I know I can and I will do it. Now have you been in talks with UFC? Does UFC know about your plans? Not yet. Not yet. What will they do now? Not yet. But I think after this show, there we have it. Now they're going to know. So you're training at AKA. Was that the first time you ever trained up there? No, that was my second time. When did you train before? Before it was one year ago, November. I came here after my glory fight. I broke my ribs. So I took a little bit of vacation in Thailand. And then after that, I just fly to AKA San Jose. And yeah, I met everybody. DC. Kabir wasn't there. But I met a lot of great great teammates. The Western level is just amazing there. So I met Javier. Javier Mendez. So that's a great camp for a guy like you too, because it's very wrestling heavy. Yeah. That's what I like. I want to train, you know, what did I say to Meiji in France? I say I want to train wrestling, BGG, like I want to be a world champion of wrestling. So I just want to train wrestling like a wrestler. I don't just want to train my takedown defense or shit like that. No, I just I want people to be afraid of me on the ground, you know. As I learn fast, as I really like it, I think that's the level I want to get. And how is it going when you train at AKA? Are you hanging in there? Like, do you find it uncomfortable? Of course. Of course, as a striker, in striking, yeah, my level is higher than anybody else in AKA. But in the ground, yeah, and they're fucking fucking strong. So, yeah, everybody that I tap, every day I tap in AKA. Yeah, for the moment. And yeah, they say I learn. You have plans on tapping. Yeah, of course. For the moment I tap, because I'm learning, and they say I learn very, very, very fast. Like, they show me once, and then I get it, you know, five minutes later I get it. And so I feel very confident for the future in MMA, and I think I will do it. Well, I'm hoping you do. It's always exciting to see world champions, particularly kickboxing, make that way to MMA, to the UFC. And for a guy like you, it's the perfect thing because you're so young, because you're 26, and you're already a very accomplished world champion. That's right. I think I'm thinking about Israel, Addisonia, you know. He, in Aida, he couldn't do it, you know. Well, he was very smart. Israel, the way he planned it, he really worked on his takedown defense and made sure that by the time he made it to the UFC, he was already at an elite level. Yeah, he was an elite, but he got a tighter shot in glory, and he lost. And after that, he went to UFC, you know. That's what I want to do. I want to be the only one to be able to do that, you know. And the glory kickboxing champ and then UFC champ. Yeah, he fought Willness, right? Willness, yeah. Yeah, very close fight. Jason Willness was very close. I thought he won. Some people thought he won, and some know. Yeah, but Jason Willness is elite. He's elite, of course. Yeah, very, very high level fighter. Well, glory is so exciting. I'm such a fan. I love watching it, man. It's like one of my favorite things to watch. Yeah. It just drives me crazy that it's not popular. And I was very excited when it was on Spike TV in America. It was they were making a big deal out of it. It looked like they were going to, you know, try to promote it as much as possible, and they tried it for a little while, and then they stopped. And now it's on ESPN a little bit. Yeah. It's on UFC Fight Pass, which is great. I think that the country where I grew is very, very most popular. I think it's popular in Holland. Yeah. Some people recognize me in the street when I was in France. Yeah, because of glory. It's very popular in Europe.