Lando Vannata Not Feeling Pressure Ahead of UFC 209 Bout

Lando Vannata spoke with MMAjunkie ahead of his fight with David Teymur at UFC 209. Highlights are below:

On expectations on him for the fight: “As I say time and time again, having pressure on you it’s the same as anxiety. It’s always thinking about the future and thinking about other things and living inside your head instead of focusing on whatever the hell you’re doing. I focus on whatever I’m doing right now, so I don’t really ever feel any pressure.”

On his plan for the fight: “There’s no specific game plan, really. It’s things we practiced and just go out there, it’s a feel-out process, we see what happens and go from here. I can see it finishing many ways. I can see myself knocking him out very quickly or I can see it being an absolute dog fight for three rounds. It doesn’t matter to me where this fight takes place. I think I can slaughter this man on the feet, and if it comes to me taking to the ground, I think I won’t have any problem getting it there.”

On his striking skills: “I started (striking) when I moved to Jackson’s, just a little bit over six years now. I just kind of fell in love with the striking aspect of the martial art. Like any other thing that you have a passion for, it kind of just blooms on its own and becomes what it is. I just fell in love with it and put a lot of work into it and had a lot of great people around to help me with it, had a lot of heads to pick and, yeah, it just flourished into what it is. It’s Greg Jackson, Brandon (“Six Gun”) Gibson, and I think most importantly for me was Cub Swanson. He’s one of the most creative strikers in he game and he’s really instilled that into me years ago.”