FEATURED FIGHTER: ERYK ANDERS

FEATURED FIGHTER: ERYK ANDERS:

By Andrew Frattaroli 

If you follow college football, you probably know that when you start for the University of Alabama, it is more than likely that you’re going to play in the NFL. That is, unless your Eryk Anders, who instead of choosing to play in a preseason game on the weekend of August 25th, is opting to fight in a cage for the UFC.

Anders started his amateur MMA career in 2012, three years after winning a national championship with Alabama. After fighting for some lower level professional organizations, he made the jump to Bellator where he beat fellow middleweight Brian White in only 23 seconds. While that was his only Bellator fight, he wasted no time in continuing his professional career at Legacy Fighting Alliance (LFA). He fought twice there, winning both of his fights, and captured the LFA Middleweight Championship belt via unanimous decision over Brendan Allen. The UFC wasted no time in scooping up the very marketable and highly talented fighter and overall athlete.

He made his UFC debut just one month after winning the LFA title, when he knocked out Rafael Natal at UFC on FOX: Weidman vs. Gastelum. 5 months after that, he defeated the very dangerous Markus Perez in December of 2017 via decision to earn his first headlining fight.

Anders was given his toughest challenge as a professional when the UFC matched him up against “The Dragon” Lyoto Machida. It seemed like a big jump for the still relatively new fighter to face the former light heavyweight champ, but to a lot of people’s surprise, Anders held his own. While he didn’t win, Anders showed why he is such an intriguing prospect. With his power and endurance, he had Machida in some dangerous moments throughout the five rounds and while he lost in a split decision, he showed that he belongs amongst the cream of the crop in the middleweight division.

At UFC Lincoln on August 25th, Anders comes back for the first time since his loss to Machida and will be looking to get back in the winning column against Tim Williams, who has a professional record of 15-4 and has a very dangerous ground game (9 submission wins).

Anders has shown that he has more comfortable standing and exchanging rather than grappling, as six of his ten wins are via KO/TKO and only one is from a submission. Anders has serious power in his hands and will look for the highlight reel finish against Williams to vault his UFC career to the next level. This isn’t an easy fight for him though as Williams is going to look to take the fight to the ground and feed on Anders’ inexperienced Jiu Jitsu game to try to finish the fight.

A win for Anders would add one more name to the already stacked upper echelon of the middleweight division and give the UFC marketing team a story to really sink their teeth into.