Hector Santiago enters the UFC octagon for the first time Saturday in Shanghai, China, battling Road to UFC tournament winner Lawrence Lui, and dreams of once again share a card with his old friend Alex Pereira.
Like the former two-division UFC champion, Santiago started his journey in combat sports through kickboxing, winning belts in WGP and WAKO before transitioning to MMA years later. His second appearance inside the WGP ring was as the curtain jerker of a card where “Poatan” won the title in a trilogy bout with Cesar Almeida in July of 2015.
Santiago and Pereira are once again fighting under the same banner, and the bantamweight knockout artist hopes to achieve the same level of success of his fellow striker with a successful debut on Aug. 29.
“I have enormous admiration for Alex,” Santiago told MMA Fighting. “Alex has been a friend of mine for a long time, since before he was famous. I followed his story very closely, so it would be amazing [to fight on the same card as him. In fact, my second fight in WGP was on the same card as him. He was fighting for the belt, and I was having my second fight, and I visualize that happening again one day.”
If that happens one day, it won’t be Santiago’s first time sharing a card with an idol.
“I fought on Kunlun Fight, where Buakaw and Yodsanklai were on the card, guys who were my idols when I first started kickboxing as a kid,” Santiago said. “They fought on the same day. I had already fought, but I was asleep when those guys were fighting. I fought, and once the adrenaline wore off, I got really sleepy. The event was at a resort, just a short distance from the room, so I took a shower, ate something and passed out. My idols were fighting just a few meters away from me, and I was sleeping. But I fought well, and that’s what gives me peace of mind. I don’t adapt well to the time difference, but I fought well all five times I fought in Asia.”
Santiago will once again have to deal with the time difference in fights, but now has a better understanding of how his body reacts through such challenge.
“I never really adapted to the time difference, but I fought well,” said Santiago, who had five kickboxing matches in Asia back in the late 2010’s. “I wake up to fight, and then after the fight I go back to sleep [laughs]. You know when you wake up in the middle of the night, get some water, and go back to sleep? That’s more or less how it was when I fought over there.”
The 33-year-old fighter dreamed of becoming a professional kickboxer and world champion in the sport, and about 10 years ago started flirting with the idea of moving to MMA. The pro MMA debut happened in 2024, and a call to join the UFC came after scoring six wins in seven bouts in a span of two years, capped off by a violent first-round knockout at Renato Moicano’s inaugural MMA event.
“Deep down, I didn’t expect [that fight to lead to a UFC call], but I thought, ‘Man, it’s going to give me some good visibility, right?’” Santiago said. “It was a good fight, against an opponent with a good record who had been getting some big knockouts, and beating this guy at Moicano’s event would give me some good exposure. But from there to the UFC, no, I didn’t imagine that [laughs].”
Lawrence Lui, his first UFC opponent, fought on the same UFC card Santiago’s teammate Tallison Teixeira beat Tai Tuivasa via decision in Sydney, so he was familiar with his abilities.
“I went back and watched his other fights because in that UFC fight he used a lot of grappling, looking for takedowns and putting his opponent against the fence, but in all his other fights, he’s a striker,” Santiago said. “So I’m kind of prepared for both versions of him. As his opponent started doing better than him in the striking, he switched to that grappling game, so he has that plan B. I have the ability to make him go to that plan B as well, so I’m already prepared for the grappling game he might want to bring.”
“I always go into the fight with the mindset of getting a knockout, but I’m ready to fight all three rounds,” he continued. “I know the level is going to go up now, but that’s my style. I’m going to look for the knockout every second. From the moment I step in there, I’m looking for the knockout, creating ways to finish the fight, and I see myself getting a knockout early in the fight.”
