Adrian Yanez hopes to secure Sean O’Malley fight after “starching” Rob Font at UFC 287

Adrian Yanez is ready to show the mainstream just how good he is.

Yanez is set to make his pay-per-view debut on Saturday in the featured fight right before the main and co-main events. It’s a massive opportunity as he will also be facing the sixth-ranked bantamweight in Rob Font who is someone Yanez knows likes to bring the fight.

“Man, I feel like it’s supposed to be there,” Yanez said on Just Scrap Radio on BJPENN.com. “You got a guy like Rob Font who’s a straight banger, straight killer. He doesn’t care how many times you hit him, he will keep coming forward and throw volume your way. I love going for the finish, if you let me hit you, I’m going to hit you as many times as I can and I’m going to try to finish you every time. Both of us are standup fighters, it’s just made for a main card spot. The warmup before your main and co-main event. I’m really excited to show off my skills and put up Fight of the Night or Performance of the Night, my end hopefully.”

When Font does make the walk to the Octagon to face Yanez, it will be his first fight in a year. Font has taken a year off after losing back-to-back fights to Marlon Vera and Jose Aldo in scraps he took a ton of damage in, which Yanez knows is never good for a fighter.

“He may or may not want to fight me in a war type of battle. If he knows anything about me, he knows there are consequences every single time you step forward,” Yanez said. “I’m going to be going out there and looking to take your head off. With him taking the year off, I think there will be ring rust. But, at the same time, he did take a lot of damage in those fights so he needed time to recover from those. But, when a lot of people take a lot of damage, it is hard to come back from.”

With Rob Font taking a lot of damage in his past couple of fights, Adrian Yanez knows there is a chance he decides to wrestle. Yet, Yanez thinks even if Font shoots early, it isn’t in him to have a boring grinding type of fight.

“I don’t think he has that in him. You pop him with the jab he is coming back with three or four,” Yanez said. “He has that fighter mentality, he has that I want to fight, I don’t think he has it in him to just wrestle. If we are pinned up against the fence the entire fight and it’s boring, I think we are both going to be disappointed.”

Should Font decide to keep it standing as Yanez thinks, he is confident he will get the better of him on the feet. Not only does Adrian Yanez expect to get the better of Rob Font at UFC 287, but he believes he will starch him and be the first person to get a KO win over Font.

“The goal every time I step into the cage is to get a finish. If I finish a guy like Rob Font, that definitely skyrockets me to the top of the division because nobody else has been able to do that,” Yanez said. “I know he has been submitted, but if I go out there and starch him, that does wonders for my career. That is also just the way I fight, going out there and trying to take people’s heads off.”

If Yanez does KO Font at UFC 287 as he suspects, he knows it is a massive win for his career. And, with Henry Cejudo fighting Aljamain Sterling for the belt, he believes he could entice Sean O’Malley to remain active and finally have them fight after they were linked ot fighting one another a few years ago.

“If something were to happen in that Cejudo-Sterling fight, I go out there and starch Font, I get that number six spot,” Yanez said. “It’s so easy for O’Malley to say I want to stay active and I might be next up. I’m coming off a great win, 6-0 in the UFC, there could be a possible chance for an interim belt between me and him.”

Do you think Adrian Yanez will KO Rob Font at UFC 287?