Ben Nguyen returns to action this Saturday Night at UFC 221, taking on top ranked Jussier Formiga in a flyweight division attraction.
The flyweight contender initially wanted to fight Formiga at UFC Fight Night Sydney, but Formiga wasn’t ready at the time and that led to a long layoff for the fighter.
“I was trying to get on the Sydney card (UFC Fight Night Sydney) and there was some talks about getting a fight with Jussier (Formiga) on that card, which was a couple of months ago. He said he wasn’t ready for that one just yet, I’m not sure why. Then we got the call for UFC 221, it was kind of that in between thing…take a fight now or wait until the next one. We decided to wait it out and we got the opponent that we wanted,” Nguyen said in an exclusive interview with Fightful’s James Lynch.
Nguyen has already competed in three UFC events in the country of Australia and the flyweight has won all three of those bouts.
One thing that Nguyen wants to accomplish this year is to break into the flyweight top five and beating Formiga is one of the guys that he needs to beat in order to achieve the goal.
“I wanted to fight anyone in the top five, my goal for the last year was to make it into the top ten, which I did after beating Tim Elliott. This years goal is to make it into the top five, so its just part of my yearly goals I come up with that keep me motivated to train. Jussier just happened to be one of those guys in the top five and I’m gonna take his spot,” says Nguyen.
UFC 221 takes place on Saturday, February 10 from the Perth Arena in Perth, Australia with Luke Rockhold and Yoel Romero headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
