Misha Cirkunov Aiming For Top 10 Ranking With a Win at UFC 206

Misha Cirkunov spoke with MMAjunkie about his fight with Nikita Krylov at UFC 206. Some highlights are below:

On the fight: “Honestly, I didn’t really want that matchup. I wanted some other names that are really, really big names. I wanted some top-10 guys. I told Joe Silva who I want, but he was trying, I guess, to hide those big names from me. Who’d they give me? They gave me a very, very tough fight, but not that many people know who he is. It is what it is. I never say no to a fight. That’s how I eat. So I’m expecting the toughest fight of my career.”

On Krylov: “He progressed a lot. We’ve seen in the UFC he lost on the ground at first, but now he’s on a five-fight winning streak. He has many submission wins, he has knockout wins – he’s a very, very tough guy. He’s very strong. He’s tall, lengthy. He’s a top-10 guy, and it’s just not many people know his name yet.”

On the stakes of the fight: “If a win against someone like Nikita Krylov doesn’t put me in the top-10 list in the rankings, then honestly I will never even look at the rankings. Nikita is one of the best top-10 fighters in the UFC at 205, and the reality is he’s challenging a lot of big names that are constantly either injured or they don’t want to fight. This is my third fight of this year. Nikita, same thing. We’re fighters.”