When Eryk Anders takes on Krzysztof Jotko at “UFC on ESPN 8” on Saturday night, the former Alabama linebacker will be fighting for the first time since in seven months.
The middleweights were supposed to meet on April 11 at “UFC Fight Night 172” in Portland, Oregon, but that event was canceled, as were all the Ultimate Fighting Championship events for a two-month period because of the coronavirus pandemic.
UFC has been making up for lost time, though, with “UFC 249” returning the promotion to the Octagon one week ago and another UFC Fight Night following on Wednesday night.
Those events took place at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida, as will “UFC on ESPN 8.” As with the previous two events, no fans will be at the arena, but the fights will be available on ESPN, with the preliminaries starting at 5 p.m. CDT Saturday followed by the main card at 8.
“Sports are starting to come back online and whatnot, starting with the UFC,” Anders told Mike Heck of mmafighting.com, “so I’m super-happy to be a part of the organization that’s kind of putting the pedal to the metal and making things happen.”
The Anders-Jotko fight is on a main card headlined by the heavyweight bout between Walt Harris and Alistair Overeem. Anders and Harris train together in Birmingham, and they managed to get in their work despite the coronavirus restrictions.
“We never stopped training even when they said shut the gyms down and all that other good stuff,” Anders said. “Walt and I were supposed to fight in April, so just decided to keep grinding, keep training, keep working. And we even got snitched on. Some lady came up to the gym -- I don’t know who she is; we didn’t get her license-plate number or nothing like that -- but she came up to the gym and was looking in the glass, saw us training and turned around and started pushing buttons on the phone, so we all know what that is. And five minutes later, the police showed up and said we had to go.
“But as soon as he left, we finished our training session anyways and then took off. So really nothing has changed except the times that we train because people are like that and we do have to sneak around under the cover of night and whatnot. We might train at 12 noon one day and six at night the next. The time of training is the only inconsistent thing.”
WALT HARRIS EMERGES FROM “DARK, DARK PERIOD” AFTER STEPDAUGHTER’S MURDER
During his press conference for Saturday night’s fight, Anders said he didn’t think he would be in Jacksonville for the UFC event if it weren’t for Harris.
“Walt was my introduction to MMA,” Anders said. “The very first day I walked into an MMA gym, I’d been doing a little jiu-jitsu elsewhere. But I thought, ‘Maybe I want to fight,’ so I walked into his gym at the time. His coach at the time – very non-competent corner – he walks up to me and says, ‘Hey, can you fight?’ And just like every other bozo on the street, I grew up fighting -- gritty guy, tough guy, not skilled at all. Growing up, that’s just how it is, you know? I was like, ‘Yeah, I can fight.’ So he said, ‘OK. Cool.’ He handed me a pair of boxing gloves. I don’t even think I had a mouthpiece, and he’s like ‘Go ahead and get in the ring.’
“I get in there, and then Walt gets in there. I knew who Walt was, but I didn’t know Walt like that. We just had a mutual friend. They arranged for me to go to the gym. I showed up, and he was my first experience with MMA. Needless to say, a five-minute round, probably four minutes and 57 seconds of it, I spent the whole time (covering up) in the corner getting beat up. He’s a gentle giant. He really is. He’s got a giant heart. In the nicest way possible, he beat me up, and I just fell in love with the sport right then and there. I just felt like the whole new skill set that I had to learn, I just felt it would be a lot funner to be on the other side, to be on the giving than the receiving side of those things. I think if I don’t have that experience, I don’t think I have an MMA career.”
Because of the fighters’ relationship, Anders finds it “a little bit extra special” to be on the main card in Harris’ debut as a headliner in UFC. Anders and Harris haven’t fought on the same card since Strikehard Productions 24 on June 15, 2013, at the Zamora Shrine Center in Irondale, when Anders still was an amateur.
Anders said training with Harris had prepped him well for Saturday’s fight.
“I think that Jotko’s biggest asset that he has in this fight is speed,” Anders said. “But Walt’s got it dialed in. I’m willing to take a Pepsi challenge on who has the fastest hands in the middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions, and I bet you that he would win. For sure without a doubt in the heavyweight division, he’s got the fastest hands. …
“My point is every day I’m training and sparring with a guy who can do everything Jotko does and is faster than Jotko is. The hardest thing to replicate is speed, and I’ve been seeing it for the last five months now.”
Anders enters the fight off back-to-back victories. He earned a split-decision victory over Gerald Meerschaert in a middleweight fight on Oct. 12 at “UFC Fight Night 161” in Tampa, Florida. On June 29, Anders knocked out Vinicius Moreira in the first round of a light heavyweight fight at “UFC on ESPN3” in Minneapolis.
Anders has a 5-4 UFC record and owns a 13-4 mark in pro mixed martial arts fights. Anders is 4-2 as a middleweight and 1-2 as a light heavyweight in UFC.
Jotko has a 12-4 UFC record and a 21-4 mark in pro mixed martial arts fights.
The Polish fighter also has won his past two outings – defeating Marc-Andre Barriault by split decision on July 27 and Alen Amedovski by unanimous decision on April 20, 2019. In the two fights before those victories, Jotko was knocked out – the only times he’s been knocked out in his pro career.
“I don’t think he likes the pressure too much,” Anders said, “and that’s like the only thing that I do really well is move forward and pressure and fight with a lot of toughness and grit. My plan is just to move forward and make him uncomfortable and over time watch him melt.”
Anders said if he and Harris score knockouts on Saturday night, the UFC should consider holding an event in Alabama with the two state fighters as headliners.
“I think if we go out there and we both get finishes in devastating fashion as we’re both accustomed to doing, I think that if the UFC comes to Birmingham or wherever in Alabama, it’s going to be a sellout event,” Anders said. “… I think Alabama’s an untapped market. The UFC hasn’t been there in a really, really long time, so I think with two guys from the state having a lot of success in the sport at the time, a lot of people would show up and support it.”
Anders played football at Alabama from 2006 through 2009. In Anders' final appearance -- the BCS national championship game -- his fumble-causing sack of Texas quarterback Garret Gilbert gave the Crimson Tide the football at the Longhorns' 3-yard line while holding a 24-21 lead with 3:02 left in the game. Anders led Alabama with seven tackles in the 37-21 victory over the Longhorns for the first of coach Nick Saban's five national titles with the Tide.
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @AMarkG1.