Matthew Semelsberger started his 2021 campaign with a 16-second knockout win over Jason Witt, and yet it wasn’t his fastest victory of the year.
Six months after dispatching “The Vanilla Gorilla” and three months after dropping a unanimous decision to Khaos Williams, Semelsberger made the walk at UFC 266, competing in front of an audience for the first time in his UFC career against Nick Diaz’s chief training partner, Martin Sano. Just like the fight with Witt, it was “one shot, one kill” for the former collegiate football standout at Marist College, as he clocked Sano with a clean right hand that ended the fight in a flash.
His tandem sudden finishes in 2021 and the fact that he’s already logged four appearances in the Octagon can obscure the fact that Semelsberger is still relatively early in his mixed martial arts career, having only made his pro debut in April 2017. He reached the UFC is a shade over four years, but is still learning how to combine his competitive spirit, clear athleticism, and obvious power into a complete fighting package.
As he put it ahead of his fight with Sano, “I have all the tools that I need and I’m sharpening them up every day, but I haven’t done the greatest job of bringing all the ingredients together.”
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Saturday night, “Semi the Jedi” welcomes another explosive athlete to the Octagon, as he squares off with AJ Fletcher, a member of the Dana White’s Contender Series Class of ’21.
Unbeaten through his first nine professional fights, the Gladiators Academy product kicked off last season by knocking out Leonardo Damiani less than halfway through the first round of the year. He’s earned finishes in eight of his nine career wins and has been logging rounds with Lafayette’s favorite son, Dustin Poirier, in the build to his debut this weekend.
Semelsberger feels like one of those fighters that is going to make a real run at some point when he gets things dialed all the way in, as he’s competitive as all get-out and a dynamic athlete, and he might already be started down that road. How Saturday’s contest with Fletcher plays out will go a long way clarifying where he’s at in his development as a fighter and what the rest of 2022 may hold for him.
And if it’s anything like his two victories from last year, the Maryland native could find himself on the fast track towards the Top 15 in the welterweight division.
