Elves Brener aims to knock out Josiah Harrell in their UFC Vegas 121 showdown Saturday especially after watching “The Muscle Hamster” get stopped back in February.
Harrell suffered his first defeat in MMA via a first-round knockout by the hands of Jacobe Smith in a welterweight clash, and Brener expects a wild back and forth brawl in the octagon at Meta APEX.
“We’re going to go out there and throw down, brother,” Brener told MMA Fighting. “That’s what I like to do, throw down, scramble if he wants to. Whatever he wants to do, I have twice as much.
“Either I’m going to knock this guy out, or I’m going to submit him. I’m working tirelessly for that. I’ve already tried I’ve already tried coming in and out, exchanging, circling, but no, I know I have the touch of death. Wherever I touch, I know I can shut someone off, and I’m going in there to do that in the fight.”
Brener will finally re-enter the cage after a 13-month layoff, returning from a three-fight skid in violent wars against Myktybek Orolbai, Joel Alvarez and Esteban Ribovics in just over a year.
The Chute Boxe talent said he decided to take a step back and rest his body and mind after the hard defeats, and “learned a lot of new things and evolved my game a lot” during this time away.
“I’m much more complete than I was before,” Brener said. “Like I’ve been saying from the very beginning, I don’t focus on the next guy I’m going to fight, I focus on my game, my game plan. I know I have a lot to evolve, but I also know there’s a lot I can improve. The fight never stops. Fighting is so interesting because you’re always learning.”
UFC Vegas 121 will mark Harrell’s first fight at lightweight in almost four years, after he focused on competing at welterweight for a record of 5-1 on the regional circuit and UFC debut, and Brener expects him to have a hard time making the cut back to 155 pounds.
Brener had his fair shake of rough weight cuts but guarantees he’s learned from past mistakes. Brener said he now walked around at 178 pounds five weeks away from the bout, when in the past he would get all the way up to 205 pounds in between UFC fights.
“I had a fight where I went through [hard a weight cut], it was that fight against Myktybek Orolbai, and since then I’ve learned a lot from it and evolved a lot,” Brener said. “For me, today, the most important thing is making weight well, because on fight day, you can be sure my energy and conditioning will be at 100 percent.”
“He’s a strong guy who’s coming down from 170 to 155, but he’s going to see that 155 is a different story, a different division,” he continued. “The suffering he’s going to go through to make 155, I’m sure it’s going to be a lot. I just hope he shows up on fight day, to be honest with you. But it’s going to be interesting to welcome him at 155 pounds.”
