Scott Rodrigues (4-1) tests skills with Alex Gluzman (2-1) in the main event of MFL 20 on Saturday night. The vacant MFL bantamweight belt is up for grabs as the 23-year-old Rodrigues, from the West Island of Montreal, Que., looks to further bolster his profile.
His opponent, Gluzman, is coming off a closely-contested last bout for the MFL featherweight title, which caught the attention of many Canadian MMA fans.
Rodrigues said he has seen that prior MFL title bid for Gluzman and has a bit of a methodology in mind for this looming fight.
“Yeah, I thought he won his last fight, to be honest. I watched the fight. And I was like, I thought he won,” said Rodrigues in an interview with MMA Empire.
“I was surprised to see, I forget the other guy’s name. (Olivier) Poisson I think his name is. I mean, he’s good. I think he’s pretty boxing-heavy in his approach. From what it seems like counter-heavy, so he doesn’t go first a ton. But I just think I have a lot more boxing experience than he does and a lot more experience than he does. I’m curious to see what his approach is going to be against me. If he’s seen some of my fights, it should be interesting.”
Last time out, Rodrigues earned the MFL 19 win over Vince Nikiforov and said he’s stoked about getting in a second fight this calendar year.
“Obviously, with the layoffs, and COVID kind of put a fork in everybody’s plans. So, I planned on coming back in and doing a good three or four fights before the break. This one will be my second one, so it was good to come back and get a win. Obviously, it’s exactly what you want. I was pretty confident I was going to get that win on the last event, similar to this one,” said Rodrigues.
“I’m really just trying to get as many fights as possible before the year is over. But I even had another fight scheduled a couple of weeks ago that ended up falling through, so we’re trying to get as much as possible in.”
Being more active is a blessing for Rodrigues, both during pandemic times and even with the context of pre-pandemic competition.
Returning to the cage after a two-and-a-half-year hiatus might sound daunting to some but, for Rodrigues, his diligent preparations and lifestyle approach to martial arts subverted a lot of that as he returned at the last Montreal Fight League card.
“I never really stopped training, so it wasn’t like I was cold or anything like that. I don’t really believe in ring rust if you’re still training. My schedule didn’t really change, to be honest, except maybe a couple of weeks where we didn’t train when it was like the beginning of everything,” said Rodrigues.
“It didn’t feel like a huge shift or anything like that. It just felt like another fight, you know what I mean? We got out there, I was already training. I got the fight booked pretty early; I think we booked it almost two months out, so I had a lot of time to help prepare and it wasn’t really a big deal at that point.”
Rodrigues’ Shoutouts
“Appreciate you taking the time. I like MMA Empire. I like what you guys are putting out, so it’s cool. I appreciate it.” Follow Rodrigues on social media: INSTAGRAM
