Amir Sadollah - Student of the Game

“You fight at this level, you have no choice to get better.
Either you get better or you’re out. And that’s something that kinda vibes with
my personality." - Amir Sadollah

First
it was kickboxer Duane “Bang” Ludwig. Next up was jiu-jitsu ace James Wilks.
Finally, entering the fray and staying there was jack of all trades DaMarques
Johnson.

What do the above welterweights have in common? They’ve all been
opponents for Amir Sadollah in the last month. For most fighters, one switch can
cause chaos in a training camp; two, that’s off the charts panic. But not for
Sadollah, who continues to set new standards daily with his low-key and
intellectual approach to the sport.

“Fortunately, my approach to the
fight has always been multi-dimensional, so I didn’t have to radically change
anything,” he said. “There are differences, but for the most part it’s still the
same training for me and I’m still working on things that I think are my strong
suits.”

It really shouldn’t be like this. As everyone knows, Sadollah was
the quiet underdog who ran the table on The Ultimate Fighter seven, defeating
Steve Byrnes, Gerald Harris, Matt Brown, and CB Dollaway (twice) to take the
season title. Then, with no pro fights to his name, he has jumped into the
Octagon to win three of five bouts, basically learning as he goes. It’s a
Cinderella story that shows no signs of ending three years after it
began.

“I try to figure out where all the time went,” he laughs. “This
career makes time fly. I feel kinda young because it only feels like three weeks
have gone by since the show, and in reality it’s been three years.”

And
these days in the UFC, with turnover rates rising in order to trim the roster,
to be here for three years is a feat in and of itself. Sadollah doesn’t look at
such matters though. Frankly, there’s not enough time to reminisce.

“I
don’t ever want to look at my career as a summary until it’s over,” he said. “I
obviously want to look at what I’m doing and what I’ve done, but I don’t care if
my record was 10-0 in the UFC, every fight is just as important to showcase your
skill and showcase what you have.”

That’s not to say he’s walked through
the welterweight gauntlet unscathed. A controversial stoppage loss to Johny
Hendricks and a clear-cut decision defeat against Dong Hyun Kim sandwiched
impressive back-to-back wins over veterans Phil Baroni and Brad Blackburn, and
these early erratic performances, while expected, kept him from making
significant forward progress in the talent-rich division.

But at UFC 122
last November, Sadollah seemed to put it all together in his decision win over
Peter Sobotta. It wasn’t a flashy knockout or decision win, just a solid, mature
effort that saw Sadollah emerge as a dangerous fighter on his way to the next
level.

“I’d be happy to agree with that,” he laughs. “It’s something you
work your whole career to get and it’s ever-evolving. The ability to put stuff
together and implement something that’s working for you and not get rattled, I
think I did a good job of that that night, but it’s not something I think ‘okay,
I got that.’ It’s ever-evolving and every fight I want to be working on that
ability and getting even better.”

It was almost as if everything clicked
and that all the hard work over the last few years in Vegas was paying
dividends. And when each UFC fight could be your last, there was no better time
to hit that clutch home run.

“You fight at this level, you have no choice
to get better,” said Sadollah, now 5-2. “Either you get better or you’re out.
And that’s something that kinda vibes with my personality. I have that all or
nothing mentality with a lot of things, so I enjoy that. It’s obviously harder,
but at the same time, that’s the way I like it. I put high expectations on
myself and high benefit with high risk is something I enjoy and something I
don’t mind working for.”

The work is far from done. Sadollah knows it as
well, and he’s doing everything he can to soak up all the knowledge available to
him. Before the Sobotta fight he even got to Europe a few weeks early to work in
Holland with his coach Marco van den Broek.
 
“It worked out for a couple
reasons,” said Sadollah, whose bout with Sobotta was in Oberhausen, Germany. “My
trainer lives in Holland and his gym wasn’t far; it was less than an hour away
from where I was fighting, so it worked out well. I went out there a few weeks
early and I like to train with those guys to sharpen up my standup, and
obviously it was an advantage to be so close. It wasn’t like a big traveling
trip for me, so it worked out well.”

And when it comes to pure striking,
Sadollah makes it clear that Holland’s stellar reputation is
well-deserved.

“Yeah, I really think so,” he said. “For pure K-1 stuff
and striking, absolutely. I think there’s something to learn from every style of
martial arts and what I like about their style and what I think works well in
MMA is that it’s a very aggressive, forward pressure style of striking, and that
plays into how I like to fight anyway. It’s got its pros and cons. Walking
forward you have to be more wary of the takedowns, but at the same time you can
use your offense and defense. For me personally, I enjoy the style and I think I
take away a lot from it. As long as you train with your specific skill in mind,
I think you can make anything translate.”

Everything is coming together
for Sadollah at precisely the right time. At 30, he’s probably hitting or about
to hit his physical prime, and with nearly 13 rounds of UFC experience under his
belt, he’s run through the gamut of emotions that a fighter can go through in
the Octagon. But as he explains, that can be a double-edged sword, so he never
wants to lose that ability to expect the unexpected.

“I don’t like to
think I know what’s gonna happen or that I’ve reached any level where I’m not
cautious about things,” he said. “Complacency is where a lot of senior guys lose
it. You get to the point in your career where you start to get experience and
you start to think you know what’s gonna happen and when it doesn’t, that
bothers you more than when you were starting and you just expected that
everything was going to be unexpected. So it’s almost easier to deal with. You
use your experience for what it’s worth and at the same time never think you’re
so experienced that you know what’s gonna happen.”

Sadollah has no idea
what’s going to happen with Johnson on Saturday night. The Utah product has
shown the ability to knock out or submit his UFC foes, and he’s also had a
couple off-nights. He’s a gameplanning nightmare, especially when he’s the third
fighter you’ve gameplanned for. But at this point, Sadollah doesn’t get rattled;
conversely, he’s learned to enjoy the game more than ever.

“One thing
that I’m noticing is that I’m able to have more fun with this and enjoy my job
and I really do now,” he said. “When I first got off the show, the biggest
difference was that I was more stressed about everything. I was trying to drink
from a fire hose of information and now I’ve learned to process a lot and let
things in at a slower pace, and I have the ability to just stop and enjoy this.
Sometimes I have to look back and say I get paid to train, I get paid to do what
I love, so it’s something that’s definitely getting better with time.”