Kevin Casey on Second UFC Run: I’m Here to Make Statements, Not Be Nice to People

Listen to Beatdown's interview with Kevin Casey in the player above.

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Kevin Casey has been a very busy man in the last 12 months.

He had three fights in Resurrection Fighting Alliance, which culminated in Casey winning the promotion’s middleweight title. He took a Brazilian jiu-jitsu match on 30 minutes’ notice against world-renowned Keenan Cornelius at Metamoris 3. And, in his Octagon return at UFC 175, he scored a 61-second knockout of Legacy Fighting Championship 185-pound champ Bubba Bush.

During a Monday appearance on the Sherdog Radio Network’s ”Beatdown” show, “King” made it clear that, if he has it his way, last weekend will not be the last time we see him in 2014.

“I’m hoping to [fight again],” Casey said. “I am going to request that from the UFC, and hopefully they give me another opportunity to make some money and represent.”

Casey is in the midst of his second stint with Zuffa. Following a technical knockout loss to Josh Samman at “The Ultimate Fighter 17” finale, the 33-year-old ran through what RFA had to offer and quickly found himself back in the UFC. The Black House MMA product does not plan on wasting this second opportunity.

“I’m in there to make statements. I want to get in, I want to get out. I want to show the UFC that I am pushing to get in that top-10 as quick as possible,” Casey said. “The quicker they see what I can do, the quicker they move me up the ranks. I’m not here to play around. I’m not here to be nice to people. I am here to make statements.”

The Los Angeles native attributes his recent success to changes in his training regimen, retaining less muscle mass and altering the process known as cutting weight.

“Coming off ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and that whole experience, I was forced to reassess how I was running my camps, mainly in my conditioning. I have taken away a lot of the heavy weight training, which has enabled my body to be more lean and more efficient when it comes to fighting for a longer duration,” Casey explained. “Also, I have dramatically changed the way I cut the weight, so now I am not cutting so much weight before the event and hurting my kidneys. I had some issues on ‘TUF’ with my kidneys -- a lot of people didn’t know that -- but that was a situation I was dealing with heading into the finale fight. The doctors really didn’t want to clear me. I had to sign waivers for them to even let me fight.”

While Casey refrained from calling out an opponent for his next fight, the Strikeforce veteran believes his well-rounded approach to MMA will bring him into title contention sooner rather than later.

“I feel like I have a big advantage on the ground and my striking is pretty good,” Casey said. “I feel that there’s very, very, very few fighters out there who are good at every aspect of MMA.”