Dustin Jacoby Glad to See ‘Kickboxers Getting the Love and the Recognition’

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At UFC 272, Dustin Jacoby is set to walk out to the Octagon for the eighth time as he locks horns with Michal Oleksiejczuk. Jacoby (16-5-1, 4-2-1 UFC) is currently experiencing success in his mixed martial arts career as he is unbeaten across his last seven outings and hasn’t lost in seven years. The Dana White’s Contender Series graduate recently upended John Allan via unanimous decision after replacing Aleksa Camur on short notice at UFC 268. Prior, he stopped Darren Stewart with punches in the first round of their light heavyweight confrontation at UFC on ESPN 30. While talking with Sherdog, Jacoby gave a lot of credit for his success to his kickboxing background, pointing out some examples of fighters who successfully transitioned from the squared circle to MMA, including current UFC 185-pound kingpin Israel Adesanya.

“It’s nice to see a lot of kickboxers getting the love and the recognition,” he said. “Look at Adesanya. He went in there and became champ despite being a ‘kickboxer’ only. You got Alex Pereira, another guy who is going in there chasing Adesanya. Two guys that they’re very familiar with. I think kickboxing is just the hardest. Between kickboxing and MMA, kickboxing is way more brutal in my mind. You’re going toe-to-toe, two guys who are just swinging sledgehammers with their hands and legs until somebody goes down. It’s brutal, man. I got that with kickboxing fights, I had been sore for a month. In MMA, you can wrestle, relax on the cage, you can take them down and relax. While you’re still working, it’s a whole different beast on the ground. I think kickboxing just prevails, man. Every fight starts on the feet, and if you’re good at using your range, keeping your distance and throwing hard strikes, I think the advantage is always in your favor.”

During the interview, “The Hanyak” also discussed the origin of his nickname, his camp for Oleksiejczuk and more.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(01:22) The origin of his nickname
(03:18) Creating his own NFT for the Hanyak
(04:00) Replacing Camur and defeating Allan
(05:44) His flaws from the Allan fight
(06:20) His relationship with weight cutting
(08:21) His camp for Oleksiejczuk
(09:00) His cornermen
(09:31) Talking about his current winning streak
(11:15) Kickboxers transitioning to MMA
(12:40) Commenting on Pereira’s UFC debut
(14:04) His walkout song
(15:15) Picking Colby Covington vs. Jorge Masvidal
(16:13) Outro

Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog began in 2018 and now he covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.