He’ll use what he’s learned next against TJ Brown this Saturday on the prelims of UFC Fight Night: Reyes vs Prochazka. Brown is hungry, still hunting for his first win in the Octagon. Kamaka has some awareness of this, but tries to stay away from thinking too much about individual opponents.
“He likes to step on the gas, and so do I. I plan on being in his face, and from what I’ve seen and heard, he likes to do the same. I can’t think too much about him, because if I get paranoid about my opponent, I’ll be out of here in no time,” he says, pointing to the Octagon behind him at the UFC APEX.
The APEX is a room where Kamaka has gotten a little cozy. He can sleep in his own bed the night before and take a short drive to the venue for the fight. He was as thrilled as anyone to watch the full-capacity crowd at UFC 261 last week, but he’s not exactly counting the minutes until it happens for him, either.
“Of course I’d want fans, but if we say we’re best fighters on the planet, that means we can fight anywhere in front of anybody. We can fight at home. We can fight on the street. We can fight in front of thousands of people. To me, at its core, fighting is fighting. If you’re good at something, you’re good at it. It doesn’t matter where. You can do it in the bathroom,” he laughs, not entirely joking. “Good things can happen no matter who is watching.”
There will be plenty watching Saturday night as “The Fighting Hawaiian” demonstrates what he can do with the benefit of a full camp.
“It’s the best I’ve ever felt. Cliché to say, but it really is. My first two UFC fights, I had combined eleven days notice. This one I had eleven weeks. I actually feel like a UFC fighter prepared for a UFC fight.”
