“I’m definitely a fan of the sport and I appreciate the things that Freddie Roach has done for the sport,” said Anders. “But the thing that really took me back was how much he talked to me. We were talking about MMA and some of the guys that he had trained and who had been in and out of the gym. And I was shocked that a dude of his status was just sitting there talking to me.”
Anders shouldn’t be shocked. A) Roach is one of the good guys in combat sports. And B) Anders is one of the top prospects in the game, even though he enters Saturday’s bout with Vinicius Moreira on a three-fight losing streak. It’s almost hard to fathom that, given the start Anders had to his UFC career, one in which he won three of his first four bouts, with the only loss a controversial split decision to Lyoto Machida. But here he is, and he’s wondering the same thing everyone else is.
“Every day it crosses my mind,” Anders said. “But I’m still putting the pieces together. I’ve been in the UFC the majority of my career and this will be my eighth fight in two years, so I’m pretty active. Some of the guys I’ve lost to, one of them (Thiago Santos) is fighting for the belt. I don’t do moral victories, but it is what it is. There’s gotta be a winner, there’s gotta be a loser and I try to be on the winning side of things.”
Even in his recent defeats, his Fight of the Night with future title challenger Santos was accepted on short notice, and his split decision loss to Elias Theodorou could have gone in his favor. And while there was no doubt in the April defeat to Khalil Rountree Jr., Anders took some shots throughout the 15-minute battle and kept marching forward. Again, no moral victory, but he did take some lessons from the bout, one of which was that while this weekend’s fight is at 205 pounds, he sees middleweight as the division where he will ultimately make his run for a belt.
