UFC middleweight Eryk Anders prefers fighting in the smaller cages, but wishes the promotion would use them in arena events.
At UFC Fight Night 206, Anders (14-6 MMA, 6-6 UFC) will share the small cage with Junyong Park (13-5 MMA, 3-2 UFC) in the opening bout of the main card at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
“I love the small cage,” Anders told reporters at media day. “I think some of the fights I’ve lost in the past, had it been in the smaller cage, I’d probably get these wins, because there’s not a whole lot of point fighting. If you look at the ratio of finishes from the big cage to the Apex cage, there’s a lot more finishes in that little cage than there are in the big cage.”
Anders is right about the finishing rate when fighters have less real estate to work in, and there is plenty of data available to prove it. Even just looking at the past four events at the UFC Apex, 53 percent of the fights were finished before reaching the judges. Compare that to 34 percent of finishes in the last four pay-per-view events in arenas that use the larger cage.
While the larger 30-foot cage comes with the roar of thousands of fans in a bigger arena, the 25-foot cage inside the Apex is a much more intimate setting with very limited seating. Anders’ solution would be to mix them both together for the best of both worlds.
“Perfect scenario for me, they would take that little cage to the arenas, the sold-out arenas, but that’s not the reality,” Anders said. “We’re all in the same cage fighting under the same kind of situation or scenario, but for me and my style, the way I like to fight, the small cage is perfect for me.”
Check out the full pre-fight media day interview with Anders in the video above.
Eryk Anders explains why the ‘perfect scenario’ would be a smaller cage in a sold-out arena