ACB Featherweight, Aleksey Polpudnikov, returns to action at ACB 90 in Moscow. He’ll face #8 ranked Alexander Peduson. Aleksey has spoken about his upcoming fight, his loss to Georgi Karakhanyan, weight cutting and more.
- Give is your thoughts on your defeat against Georgi Karakhanyan?
This fight showed all of my flaws and weaknesses. It’s something I knew was there during the training but it got exposed in the fight for the first time against Karakhanyan. I was disappointed but not because I lost, but because it was a dull fight. I don’t even want to watch it. Emotionally I took the loss with no problems. He didn’t beat me. He was just holding me for 15 minutes, good for him. I have no problems with that, I’ve never been worried about my win streak.
Now I’m feeling great. I had some rest, and now we’re back to work. I’m so pumped for this fight.
- Speaking of which, give us your thoughts on Alexander Peduson as an opponent?
I don’t really know him that much. I saw him once in Moscow but we haven’t talked. He’s a good fighter, solid striker. People are underestimating his ground game. He has good takedowns, he’s just not that great at holding the position. I wouldn’t call him one sided fighter, like many other people think. He’s fast, has good footwork, he’s a game opponent. He’s comfortable in the fight. I can see he likes it.
I want to make a great show. We’re not changing anything in my style. We’re just continuing to improve my skills: wrestling, striking and we’re working on my conditioning a lot. Just trying to be as well rounded as possible.
I wish Alexander a healthy training camp, so he doesn’t get any injuries and will be in the best shape for our fight. This is what I need from him, everything else is irrelevant.
- One of the biggest problems in modern MMA is weight cutting, what can you say on that?
I’ve always made weight. I never had problems with that. Of course it’s not an easy task, but you have to do it. Yes, I’m looking pretty big, but I’m not that heavy. My off season weight is around 78 kilos. I’m cutting from around 75. I’ve made weight so many times, that I know some knowledge and tricks now. So it’s not bothering me at all.
- You’re fighting on the same card your teammates Timur Nagibin and Alexander Sarnavskiy are fighting, is it a good thing in your opinion?
It’s great that we’re all on the same card. There will be some other guys from our team too. So almost everybody from our team we’ll be in Moscow. Currently I’m training in Khabarovsk. But 3-4 weeks prior to my fight I’ll go to Omsk and all this time we’ll be working together, helping each other. Usually I’m the only one dieting, but this time there’s three of us, so that will make things easier. It’s definitely a huge plus.
