Cirkunov feeds off hometown support in statement fight at UFC 206

The referee stops the fight as Misha Cirkunov of Canada, bottom, puts a choke hold on Nikita Krylov. (Peter Power/CP)

TORONTO — Misha Cirkunov picked himself up off the mat, sprinted to his corner, and straddled the top of the cage.

“I love this city!” he screamed at the top of his lungs after submitting no. 8 ranked light-heavyweight Nikita Krylov at UFC 206 Saturday night. “I love this city!”

The win—Cirkunov’s eighth straight—was a significant statement for the up-and-coming Canadian as he continues his siege on the UFC’s light-heavyweight division. He’s now stopped all four of the opponents he’s faced since joining the UFC in mid-2015, and he should find himself ranked well within the top-10 of his division by the new year. With apologies to Rory MacDonald, Cirkunov is arguably the most promising Canadian UFCer since Georges St-Pierre.

And yet, after his four-minute and 38-second victory Saturday night, all the Latvian-born Cirkunov wanted to talk about was the crowd in his adopted home.

“Nobody ever in my life supported me like the support I got today. And it means so much to me,” Cirkunov said. “I don’t want to talk about sponsors. I don’t want to talk about any of that. I just want to give the love and the appreciation back to this city and all of these fans.

“Having this kind of crowd supporting me, I thought that I could go into anything. I thought that I could go into a fire and come out not burnt. Having this kind of crowd, it really gives you extra horsepower.”

That support was impossible to ignore. After several Canadians dropped bouts earlier in the night, the sold out Air Canada Centre crowd still echoed chants of “Misha! Misha!” around the rafters throughout Cirkunov’s fight.

“Hearing all those fans was giving me really good energy. But staying calm was the biggest thing,” Cirkunov said. “It’s like chess. It’s mixed martial arts chess.”

To that point, Cirkunov has been making significant moves on a shallow 205-lb division’s chessboard. Daniel Cormier, Anthony Johnson and the currently-suspended Jon Jones are entrenched atop that light-heavyweight group. But beyond that trio, there’s a discernable lack of legitimate contenders on the upswing of their careers. After his victory Saturday night, Cirkunov thinks he’s primed to put himself in that discussion.

“In the top-five, there’s some real, real animals there. Real high-level competitors. But I feel like at the end of 2017 I’ll be at that level,” the 29-year-old out said. “I’ve just got to work on a few things that I feel I have to work on.”

Cirkunov certainly didn’t show many weaknesses in his fight against Krylov. He controlled the pace from the onset, standing in with Krylov early instead of trying to immediately take the fight to the ground as some might expect him to.

“I didn’t go after him right away because I knew he was going to come out hard,” Cirkunov said. “So, I just made him think we were going to kick each other a little bit.”

Krylov’s most dangerous weapons are his legs, but that didn’t stop Cirkunov from trading kicks with his opponent for the first couple minutes, a strategy that perhaps lulled Krylov into a false sense of security.

“I can kick too, you know?” Cirkunov said. “And as soon as he starts believing that it’s kicks, then I start sneaking in some of my boxing. I didn’t put everything into my punches. I just wanted to touch him. Because I knew if I touched him he was going to feel it.”

Backed into a corner by Cirkunov a little more than four minutes into the fight, Krylov threw a head kick with his left leg, which Cirkunov ducked before firing a straight left into Krylov’s nose that rocked his head back and crumbled the 24-year-old Ukrainian.

“I’ve been working on my boxing so much. I box with pro guys. Heavyweights. Light-heavyweights. Any weight. I box with really high-level guys,” Cirkunov said. “Everyone knows me as a grappler. But you have to watch out for my hands now. And when I saw him on the ground—that’s my world now.”

It sure is. As Krylov desperately grabbed onto Cirkunov’s right leg, the judo and jiu-jitsu black belt sprawled out and easily sunk in a deep guillotine choke on his opponent, which ended the fight seconds later.

It was an unexpected finish. Most thought this fight was too close to call, and the odds on it swung wildly throughout the week. Even Cirkunov never envisioned finishing the fight so quickly.

“Fighting Nikita was a big challenge. He came in on a five-fight win streak and he finishes everybody. He goes to the ground, submits people, he knocks people out standing up. I knew it was going to be very, very tough,” Cirkunov said. “Honestly, I thought I was going to be covered in blood. I was ready for war.”

Instead, Cirkunov came out almost entirely unscathed, with only a touch of discolouration beneath his left eye. The obvious question now is whom he fights next. And if you ask Cirkunov, he’ll tell you exactly the foe he has in mind: 35-year-old veteran Maurico “Shogun” Rua.

“To me, he’s a true pioneer. A true legend of mixed martial arts,” Cirkunov said of the former light-heavyweight champion. “Honestly, I’ve never even thought I would have a chance to fight someone like that. That would be for me, a real, real tough matchup.

“But my whole entire career I’ve been an underdog. And I want to keep it that way. And I want to reach a level I’ve never reached before.”

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