Chris Clements ready for UFC 149, Late Replacement and All
Tomorrows UFC 149 has gone through massive changes from top to bottom and Canadian welterweight Chris Clements was one of the many replacement fighters. After Thiago Alves got injured he stepped in to face Siyar Bahadurzada on the UFC 149 main card. You would be seeing that exciting bout though as Bahadurzada would get injured and be replaced by Matt Riddle to complete to overhaul.
Chris Clements stepped in early enough to nearly get a full training camp in but his new opponent is nothing stylistically like the one he was originally training for. Riddle is more of a wrestler than a powerful striker like Clements was training for with Bahadurzada.
“They are very different, but I didn’t really change much. Didn’t have much time so I didn’t want to stress about it, so basically I just worked on what I plan on doing instead of what my opponent may or may not do,” said Clements of the change.
With that said, Riddle now comes into the fight on just 20 days notice, a completely different fighter than what Clements has been training for which could spell trouble, right? Well not so fast says Clements, as he points out that the guy with the longer camp will have the better cardio. “With a longer training camp your conditioning will be better. If you can’t breathe you can’t fight,” he explained.
So maybe it’s a wash, each fighter will step into the Octagon to open the UFC 149 PPV with a slight disadvantage. Chris Clements though has the wildcard as he’ll have the home field advantage when the UFC makes their first ever trip to Calgary and the packed house at the Saddledome will be 100% behind their fighter. “I’m really excited to feel the energy in the Saddledome when the fans get to experience their first live UFC event,” described Clements.
Despite all the injuries the Calgary fans are getting their first ever Live UFC experience and Chris Clements is honored to be a part of UFC 149, no matter the opponent.
Above photo courtesy of Chris Clements
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