Tai Tuivasa is happy to be home at UFC 293
Australian heavyweight Tuivasa brought his camp back home ahead of his first fight in Sydney since his UFC debut.
The moment UFC announced its return to Sydney, Australia, for the first time in six years, everyone figured Tai Tuivasa would find a spot on the card. The proud Western Sydney native is as tied with his home city as any fighter is on the roster, so it only makes sense for everyone involved.
Tuivasa, naturally, has fond memories of fighting in Sydney. He made his UFC debut during the promotion’s most recent visit to New South Wales, stopping Rashad Coulter in the first round. Tuivasa would follow that with another first-round finish when he got Cyril Asker out of there early at UFC 221 in Perth. However, Tuivasa is now looking for his first win Down Under since then, as he dropped his last appearance in Australia when Serghei Spivac submitted him at UFC 243 in Melbourne.
More critically than that, though, is Tuivasa (15-5 MMA, 8-5 UFC) heads into his co-main event with Alexander Volkov (36-10 MMA, 10-4 UFC) having lost his last two bouts to Ciryl Gane and Sergei Pavlovich via knockout, which came in the span of three months. That prompted a step back for Tuivasa, who had fought six times since March 2021. After spending the last several camps in Dubai, Tuivasa opted to bring his camp back to Australia, and he feels the decision paying dividends.
“I feel a lot fresher at this camp,” Tuivasa said. “I think maybe just taking my son to training and stuff really makes you push that extra bit, and having him there kind of gets me through the session easier. It’s been good. I really loved this camp at home, so I feel good and ready to roll.
“(It’s good) to be at home and to do normal things like pick up my son and drop my son off to school and just being around and seeing familiar faces. I’ve been training with a lot of my childhood friends and family since I was a little kid. It’s really been awesome, to be honest.”
From the sound of it, Tuivasa made the right move coming home just as he made the right move going to Dubai a few fights ago. While he maintains the easy-going energy as always, there is some palpable urgency for “Bam Bam” ahead of this bout.
Before his back-to-back losses, Tuivasa was on a roll. Five consecutive knockout wins, punctuated with his finish of Derrick Lewis in Houston, had Tuivasa in the highly intriguing heavyweight title picture. Losses to Gane in Paris and Pavlovich in Orlando aren’t anything to hang one’s head about, but Tuivasa definitely doesn’t want to find himself on a three-fight skid as he did back in 2019. The 34-year-old Volkov is a literal tall task at 6-foot-7, but Tuivasa, who does hold a win over Stefan Struve, is no stranger to the situation.
“I think it’s a great matchup,” Tuivasa said. “He’s a guy I’ve watched for many years and someone that I’ve always wanted to share the cage with. It’s great. I’ll get to do it at home. He’s coming off a two-fight winning streak. I’m coming off a two-fight (losing streak), so this is definitely my time to get back on top.”
As far as replicating that excitement from his UFC debut, Tuivasa is a little skeptical. All he is concerned about is delivering the goods at home this weekend, not about what he has or hasn’t accomplished in the country beforehand.
What is a certainty is that the home crowd is eagerly anticipating the signature “shoey” celebration should Tuviasa get the W, which is almost guaranteed to set arena off on a bender ahead of the middleweight title fight between Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland.
“Every fight that you win is a great feeling and something you can’t ever get back,” Tuivasa said. “I think at home, my family there, a crowd full of Westies, it’s going to be special, but until then, I’ve been working hard, and I’ve put everything I’ve had into getting the win. I’ll be ready.”
So will the crowd, likely with a beer and a shoe in hand.
This story first published at UFC.com.