Saaiman soaks in UFC debut win

He won via knockout in his bantamweight bout several hours before compatriot Dricus Du Plessis forced Englishman Darren Till to submit during their middleweight fight on the main card, officially becoming a top 10 contender for the title. 

Saaiman shares his experience. 

"Just super grateful for the experience it's been absolutely amazing. We've been here for 12 days, travelling from South Africa is a toll task, climatising and all that. It's been a really awesome fight week was absolutely amazing," he said.

It's my second time in Vegas, this experience is much different than the contender series. So, it was really cool and the fans are super welcoming," he explained.

He says his North American opponent proved to be a tricky fighter even though he’d studied him enough to know what to expect. 

"Definitely expected that but not to that level I would say. I definitely underestimated how tight he was on the ground. I do have a lot of faith in my grabbling as well but he was super tight. A lot of the stuff that we wanted to implement just took a little bit longer but luckily we could create the necessary gaps. 

It was super tight, it felt like a planet on top of me, he has very tight hips. I talked to Steven Koslov he's a really a good grabbler. He's stand up, he's super calm, he has like a weird stand up as well so it was really hard to read. But by the end of the second round, we knew, okay we got it," he added.

The 21-year-old also added his voice to South Africa potentially hosting UFC in the near future. 

"I honestly cannot see them go to any other country in Africa than South Africa. There's definitely no other country that will have the infrastructure, the tourism, anything that can be close to South Africa. I think you guys will have an amazing time there. We have the best country on earth," he concluded.