Ryan Gandra picked up the win over Ozzy Diaz at UFC 331, but he wasn’t interested in quietly moving on to whatever comes next.
With the middleweight division packed with fighters trying to break through, Gandra knows making noise matters, and he made plenty of it by calling for a fight with former UFC champion Israel Adesanya.
“That’s the guy that I’ve been watching since I’ve been coming up. A guy who’s fought Anderson Silva, Poatan (Alex Pereira), all these different guys, and it’s not out of disrespect. I just want to be among those names,” Gandra told reporters including Cageside Press through a translator at his post-fight scrum.
“It’s a guy that I know he’s also going to bring a war. We’re going to put on a great fight for the fans. It’s not only a matter of wanting that fight, but a question of business and wanting to be involved with him.”
“I would say that middleweight is probably the toughest division right now. There’s all those prospects,” he said.
“A lot of these guys trying to break into the top 15, top 10. I think it’s not just that. You have to build a whole image behind it and you have to promote yourself. I think a lot of those guys are maybe afraid to call different names out, but I’ve been doing that. I do that and that’s why I even said Israel Adesanya.”
Watch the entire post-fight scrum with Ryan Gandra above.