Mario Bautista talks upcoming UFC Vegas 64 fight & training with Sean O’Malley
Mario Bautista will be going into his UFC Vegas 64 fight in a bit of unfamiliar territory.
So far, Bautista has come into almost every single one of his 12 professional fights with a height and reach advantage except for when he fought former UFC interim bantamweight title challenger Cory Sandhagen.
Now on Nov. 5 at UFC Vegas 64, Bautista will have his second fight in which he’ll be a shorter fighter when he takes on Benito Lopez.
While that maybe something slightly new on fight night, Bautista is used to fighting other taller, longer and bigger bantamweights since he trains with one almost every single day.
Bautista trains at the MMA Lab in Phoenix, Ariz. alongside UFC superstar Sean O’Malley and in the lead up to this fight, not O’Malley and Bautista have spent some extra time together since their scheduled fight days are close to one another.
While O’Malley will look to win a title eliminator fight against former champion Petr Yan this weekend at UFC 280, Bautista is looking to make a major splash within the division as well.
Bautista is currently 10-2 as a pro and he is currently riding a two-fight winning streak to go a long with victories in four of his last five outings. A win puts Bautista in a position to be right in the mix for a ranking.
While Bautista is focused on picking up the win, he is aware of what maybe on the horizon and whatever happens, he’ll be ready for as he feels that he is in the best place of his career.
Prior to UFC Vegas 64, Bautista spoke with MyMMANews to discuss his matchup with Lopez, training at the MMA Lab and his friendship with O’Malley.
You can watch his full interview in the video above.
A full list of fights scheduled for UFC Vegas 64 are listed below:
Bryce Mitchell vs. TBA
Darrick Minner vs. Shayilan Nuerdanbieke
Amanda Lemos vs. Marina Rodriguez
Mario Bautista vs. Benito Lopez
Nate Maness vs. Tagir Ulanbekov
Ramona Pascual vs. Tamires Vidal
Jinh Yu Frey vs. Polyana Viana
Johnny Munoz vs. Liudvik Sholinian
Carlos Candelario vs. Jake Hadley
Miranda Maverick vs. Shanna Young
Josh Parisian vs. Chase Sherman