SANTIAGO LOOKING TO FINISH SASAKI AT SENGOKU

American Top Team fighter Jorge Santiago will take on Yuki Sasaki on May 18 at World Victory Road’s Sengoku II in Tokyo. These two were supposed to square off in Strikeforce’s middleweight tournament last November. Sasaki, however, was pulled from the fight after failing to get medical clearance. Now, Santiago is ready to finish what he never had the chance to start.

MMAWeekly Radio had a chance to speak with Santiago amidst his final preparations for the fight. “I'm so excited,” exclaimed Santiago. “I've been training harder than ever. I'm prepared to put on a big show for the Japanese crowd.”

Since they were previously scheduled to fight, it wasn’t much of a problem to adjust to Sasaki’s style. “I studied him before because we were supposed to fight.”

While Santiago had mixed results in the UFC, he has rebounded well since then. After finishing Andrei Semenov in Bodog, he submitted the always tough Jeremy Horn in Art of War 3.http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=6251&zoneid=13

Santiago is on quite a roll at the moment, but Sasaki will be a tough opponent. I'm looking forward to this one, should be a good fight.

Reading his one quote 'I've been training harder than ever'...has there ever been a fighter where they said they havent trained hard. It just seems every interview of basically any fighter now they have all said for their up coming fight they have trained harder than ever or this is the hardest they have ever trained etc. Its almost become the cliche' thing to say.