UFC flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja labeled the next title challenger, Steve Erceg, as ‘lucky’ when he was told he would defend his title against him next.
The flyweight division finally gets a fresh matchup at the top when Alexandre Pantoja defends his 125lb title against rank 10, Steve Erceg, in his home city of Rio de Janeiro at UFC 301.
‘Astroboy’ getting the title shot came as a big surprise to many because of the fact he’s only ranked 10th in the flyweight division and only joined the promotion midway through last year.
Despite that, because the UFC didn’t want to make a third fight between Pantoja and Brandon Royval, there weren’t many other options left that Pantoja hadn’t already fought and beaten.
Steve Erceg agrees with Pantoja that he is ‘lucky’
The 28-year-old didn’t take any offense to what Pantoja said, and in fact, agreed with the Brazilian champion that he is ‘lucky’.
“I am lucky,” Erceg told MiddleEasy about Pantoja’s comments. “How often do you get a guy that’s number 10 ranked getting a shot at the title, I understand that it’s the right place at the right time but I’ll take some luck, sometimes.”
Although Erceg getting the title shot came as a surprise to the majority, he has looked extremely impressive throughout his three UFC fights.
In his last fight against Matt Schnell in March, he scored an emphatic left-hook knockout, earning himself a $50,000 performance bonus in the process.
Steve Erceg explains why he was given the title shot
The 28-year-old admitted that he thought Amir Albazi would be called upon next, but because of his injury, he believes the UFC has done right by the fans by not giving the Royval vs Moreno winner another title shot.
“I thought Albazi would be next but obviously he’s injured at the moment so he can’t take any fights, so I think that’s one of the reasons why I got the opportunity.
“I was really hoping neither of them (Royval and Moreno) would get to fight for the title again. Not only me, but a lot of fans don’t like to see the same fights playing over and over again we want to see parity in the division, we want to see new matchups and different things happening, progression.”
Muhammad Mokaev is someone who certainly wasn’t happy to learn the news of Erceg getting the next title shot as he questioned the UFC’s decision to pick the Australian over him.
Mokaev picked up the biggest win of his career thus far on the same card that Erceg beat Schnell, but because he didn’t impressively beat Alex Perez, he was overlooked this time around.
Erceg claimed that the fans wouldn’t have been any more excited to see Mokaev fight for the title instead of him.
“I thought the fact he (Mokaev) was ranked higher and he has a lot of hype around him and he has a big following on Instagram and Twitter I just thought even with his performance he’d have got the title shot. I don’t think people would’ve been super excited to see him fight for the title after his last performance.” Erceg added.
Other notable names that have fought for a UFC title shortly after joining the promotion are Jiri Prochazka and Alex Pereira. The aforementioned Prochazka fought for the 205lb title just three fights into his UFC tenure, with Pereira’s fourth UFC fight being a title fight.