Kai Kamaka III has already learned the hard way that nothing in MMA is guaranteed, especially a spot on the UFC roster.
Now back for his second run with the promotion, Kamaka isn’t taking a damn thing for granted as he gets ready to face longtime veteran Andre Fili at UFC Vegas 122, a matchup that gives him another chance to show exactly why he fought his way back in the first place.
“I’m grateful every time I think about it I’m just more grateful and blessed to have been the places I’ve been. The things that I’ve been through and the places I got to be,” Kamaka told reporters on Wednesday.
“It’s real ups and downs so I can’t complain. I was thinking about, not only just being the second time back in the UFC, but navigating through the business end itself. Makes me realize why I do this in the first place. If I didn’t love it I would have stopped a long time ago.”
Kamaka knows exactly what Fili brings to the table because the dude has basically spent half his life fighting at the highest level. He’s been through wars, seen damn near everything inside the cage, and Kamaka has nothing but respect for getting the chance to finally throw down with him.
“Battle-tested experience. Well-rounded, long, rangy, he’s a story in itself, he’s still here,” he said.
“He was a young kid that grew up in this sport so I’m happy to share the cage with him.”
Kamaka isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel against Fili. He believes they bring some similar tools into the cage, but the way they use them is completely different, and Kamaka likes where those differences leave him once the fight gets going.
“I hate to sound like a broken record, things that you might hear, in the fight game for a long time. If I just fight my fight, my style of fight, it favors me. We have opposite styles of fighting, similar attributes, similar ways of approaching the game” he said.
“But our tactics are way different.”
Watch the entire media day scrum with Kai Kamaka III above. He faces Andre Fili at UFC Vegas 122 on Saturday night.