Noah Ali (10-5-1) will finally fight again for the first time since Dec. 2019 when he faces Gabe Sagman (7-4) in the main event of Unified MMA 44 for the Unified MMA bantamweight title on Friday night.
A bantamweight title fight after nearly two years away is the kind of comeback story regional MMA runs on — Ali didn't take the easy road back, he waited for the matchup he wanted and then took the biggest fight available when the call finally came.
Ali, 37, was holding out for a fight with Jamie Siraj, and along with COVID, the Calgary native didn’t get a fight booked. But, once he got the call to face Sagman for the bantamweight title, Ali was ecstatic.
The combination of a pandemic and a specific opponent in mind is a brutal way to lose two years of a career — Ali at 37 can't afford many more layoffs, and the fact that he held out for Siraj rather than taking the first available bout says something about how seriously he's taking this stage of his career.
“I’m super stoked, especially getting to fight in front of my city,” Ali said to MMA Empire.
The hometown main event is the kind of spot that makes a career worth having — fighting for a title in the city where you train, in front of the people who've watched you come up through the amateur ranks, is the payoff for years of regional grind that most fighters never get.
“These opportunities, especially with COVID, haven’t been there, so I jumped on it. It has been a struggle to get fights and I was waiting to fight Jamie Siraj and that didn’t happen, but I’m pumped for this one and to fight for the belt.”
Against Sagman, Ali expects the former flyweight to be full of energy early on and try and outpace him.
The flyweight-to-bantamweight jump is the detail that makes Sagman dangerous in a specific way — a fighter coming up in weight often brings the pace and volume of a smaller man, and Ali expecting him to be full of energy early is the right read on how a 7-4 fighter approaching a title shot fights.
Yet, he also thinks once he starts landing, Sagman will go back to his wrestling roots and take some bad shots.
The 'he'll go back to wrestling' prediction is the classic read on a grappler who's been tagged early — fighters revert to their base under pressure, and Ali betting that Sagman's aggression will create the opening he needs is exactly the kind of patient veteran's approach that title fights are won with.
“I know he’s a grinder and a wrestler and will probably try and take me down, but maybe he wants to stand and trade? I know he has fought at 125 before, so he doesn’t have to cut that much weight, which should make him have a lot of energy,” Ali said.
“I’m expecting a grinding fight, but I’m ready to put it on for my city and leave it all out there.”
Not only is Ali excited to leave it all out there in front of his hometown crowd but he also says a big change in this fight is the fact he’s now competing in MMA for fun.
Fighting is no longer a job for Ali, which he believes will only help him as he’s not worried about taking fights when he’s not ready. Instead, he’s taking the right fights when he wants and he believes that will show in this contest.
The 'fighting for fun' reframe is the kind of mental shift that extends careers — a 37-year-old who stops treating every bout like a job interview and starts treating it like the thing he loves is often the version of a veteran who finally performs the way his record always suggested he could.
“I’m going in there to have fun and that is the biggest change. Fighting is just fun for me as it’s not my career and I don’t feel like everything is on the line,” Ali said.
“I’m just going to go in there to have fun and come out with that W and become the champ in front of my city.”
The championship stakes are what make this the most important fight of Ali's career to date — a 10-5-1 veteran getting a title shot at 37 after two years away is the kind of last-chance scenario that makes a fighter either deliver the performance of his life or get passed by, and Ali knows which version he's planning to be.
With Ali now fighting for fun, he believes that will lead to him finding the knockout when Sagman gets too aggressive and leaves his chin open.
“You never know in this game what is going to happen. The truth is here, Gabe is very aggressive, but he might be too aggressive and I think I will catch him with something,” Ali said.
“I have five rounds here, so I’m going to be patient, and I think his overaggressiveness will lead to me catching him. It will be fun.”
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